The granddaughter of the founder of Wilko has said the chain’s management team and staff tried everything they could to revive the struggling discount retailer before it collapsed into administration earlier this month.
Speaking to The Times, Lisa Wilkinson said: “Everybody has thrown everything and everything again at trying to make Wilko a success.
“The team members, the suppliers, the landlords . . . everybody has thrown their soul and heart at it — and if I get tearful, that’s how I feel, because people have worked really bloody hard, round the clock, to keep this thing going.
“If it couldn’t be kept going it’s because it couldn’t be kept going,” she told the publication.
Wilko plunged into administration at the beginning of August after several months of teetering on the edge of collapse.
The value retailer fell behind while rival chains including B&M, Poundland and The Range found success amid the cost-of-living crisis.
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However, Wilkinson claims Wilko’s demise was down to lots of little mistakes instead of larger factors.
She said: “When people are looking at how this happened, they want it to be a single big thing that was seismic, and it wasn’t.
“It’s a whole load of things that have just added up to a seismic thing over time and which mean we have ended up in the place where we’ve ended up, which is a very sad place.”
The retailer plummeted to a £36.8m pre-tax loss in the year to January 2022 after sales over the period slipped 3% to £1.3bn. It paid £3m dividends to the family the same year.
Despite racking up significant losses, Wilkinson told The Times that Wilko still had more than £100m in assets and £58m in cash.
“Hindsight is a great bedfellow and I like to think we did all the things we should do when we paid dividends.
“The board checked that we’d got profits or reserved profits, there was sufficient cash, we went through the right governance, the auditors checked it off.
“Is there a bit of me lying awake at night saying I wish we’d never taken a penny of dividends out? It might have made us survive a couple of months longer,” she said, adding that it “really wouldn’t have made a difference”.
Administrators at PwC are facing mounting pressure to accept one of the several rescue bids received for Wilko after private equity firm M2 Capital submitted a last-minute offer understood to be worth £90m.
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19 Comments. Leave new
I worked for wilkos for 13 years and got made redundant 7 years ago it was declining then. I think they got to greedy and opened to many shops in a short space of time.
This has been coming for a few years shelves empty discount store don’t make me laugh
Bit like pound land which is not not £1 friendly anymore
I called into Wilko last week for the ‘sale’ I saw nothing I would call a sale price. Sure they had slightly marked down garden furniture, but so does any store at this time of year. I did pick up a bag of whiskas cat biscuits that was 30% off, only to call next door to home bargains where the same bag was 75p cheaper and not on sale. This is the reason why Wilko failed. They have failed to keep up with competitors, and even now, during a closing down sale, the sale price falls way above the full price of rival stores.
I will miss the store only for the wipes and bird suet.
The granddaughter should be ashamed. I bet you any money she took £££s out before the collapse
Her grandfather will be turning in his grave over this.
I & many others have lost our jobs due to the bad MANAGEMENT, greedy board members & LISA WILKINSON! I have put my blood, sweat & now tears into working for Wilko for 19 years! I loved working for the company & we were one big happy Family! It is disgusting how we have been treated! LISA WILKINSON, YOUR GRANDAD & DAD WOULD BE ASHAMED! It is a shame that Tony Wilkinson has dementia, because if he knew what had been going on, there would be NO WAY that he would have let it continue & would have saved the company himself! It’s a shame that no actual law has been committed & she won’t be going to prison for what she has done!
I think this woman is suffering from cognitive dissonance somewhat.
The Wilkinson family took £77 million out of the ailing business over the last decade.
The Wilkinson family paid themselves multiple million pound dividends each year during the covid crisis while revenues fell and debts rose.
The Wilkinson family hurriedly sold off their main distribution centre to rent it back earlier this year for a staggering c£50m below its market rate.
The Wilkinson family according to numerous insiders bizarrely refused to acknowledge that the likes of B&M, Home Bargains, Poundland, or Poundstretcher as their main competitors instead comparing themselves with premium retailers.
While few are stating it’s solely the Wilkinson family’s fault this sorry state of affairs occurred, the bulk of the blame for their company’s failure lies with the current Wilkinson family’s business lead, Lisa Wilkinson, and to suggest otherwise is at best, deeply disingenuous and speaks volumes.
Well said, spot on and she’s getting away with this it’s disgusting.
yes corporate mugging at its best
That right you’ve tried everything you could to get every penny out of the company before anyone noticed it was going down the pan.
Absolutely right.
Put a Lawyer in charge of a Retailer, this is the outcome. Her entire article relates to after the business had imploded, not the 10 years of terrible strategy that led to this position.
Very sad, I think it sums up the naivety of the Board
Naivety. They knew exactly what they were doing
Couldn’t agree more James, very sad inded!
Lisa Wilkinson is the cause of the decline in Wilkos fortunes. The decline and reasons for the decline have been obvious to the whole senior management team (of which I am proud to have been one) that led the business through the 80s and 90s and made it one of the most successful retailers in the UK. The whole decline can be laid directly at the door of Ms Wilkinson and her misplaced ego.
Wow – this is shocking to read – another example of ego defining a brand and those trying to navigate the cruise liner simply can’t get control – so sorry to read this. lets hope karma has its way – it normally does. All those poor people who won’t have pension pots – its broken at its finest
Well said
I have shopped at wilkos since I was 15 years old I’m now 60 years young will be sorry to see it close in bulwell.