Online marketplace OnBuy has made an eleventh hour bid to buy the Wilko brand, Retail Gazette can reveal.
It is thought that OnBuy wants to continue trading through Wilko.com. The Bournemouth-based firm, set up by entrepreneur Cas Paton, lodged the offer after it emerged that potential white knight M2 Capital’s bid to rescue the entire group, including all 400 stores and staff, collapsed today.
It is unlikely that the online marketplace, which was ranked as the UK’s the fastest growing ecommerce businesses last year with sales up more than 3000% since 2018, wants to buy any stores.
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Administrator PwC announced earlier today that it would start making redundancies in Wilko’s support teams from early next week.
PwC is still pouring over bids for part of the collapsed business, with HMV owner Doug Putman in the running to snap up around 350 of its stores.
Like OnBuy, The Range is looking to snap up the Wilko brand whilst discounter rivals including Poundland, B&M and Home Bargains are looking to snap up stores.
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