All 400 Wilko branches will now close by early October resulting in a further 9,100 redundancies, administrators at PwC said.
The news comes after the proposed rescue deal by HMV owner Doug Putman to save a significant proportion of the discount retailer collapsed late last week.
Administrators said on Monday: “Staff at 124 stores have today been informed that those outlets will close on, or before, Thursday 21 September.
“Timings for the closure of the remaining 222 stores will be announced in due course.”
It added that Wilko’s distribution centres will now close on Friday (15 September), making the majority of the remaining 886 employees redundant on that date.
Further redundancies of the remaining 210 support centre employees will take place later this month and early October as operations wind down.
According to Sky News, PwC now expects to sign a deal with The Range to acquire the Wilko brand and online assets in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Poundland is understood to be in the running to snap up 100 stores, although it is unclear whether the employees at the branches will be included in the transaction.
Talks with Putman came to an end over the weekend due to the central costs associated with taking on the chain’s infrastructure.
Putman said: “It is with great disappointment that we can no longer continue in the purchase process for Wilko having worked with administrators and suppliers over several weeks to seek a viable way to rescue it as a going concern.
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“We had financing in place and received the full support of PwC, Wilko management and staff representatives, which we are deeply thankful for considering what a challenging time it has been for them,” he said.
“However, commitment to overhauling the trading framework of the business with partners and the costs of running Wilko’s legacy operations infrastructure combined has meant that a stable foundation could not be secured to ensure long-term success for the business and its people in the way that we would have wanted.”
Sky News revealed last week that Putman had faced resistance from Gordon Brothers to finance the acquisition of 300 stores, resulting in a slimmed-down deal of about 100 Wilko sites.
The Canadian tycoon also faced difficulties with Wilko’s big suppliers which requested their debt was repaid before reopening the supply lines to the retailer.
Administrators have so far announced about 1,600 redundancies across its stores, head office, distribution and support centres since the value retailer plunged into administration last month.
Last week, it was revealed that rival B&M had bought 51 Wilko stores for £13m while the deal with Putman was worked out. Employees at the affected locations were not included in the deal.
GMB Union national officer Nadine Houghton said: “Wilko was far more than a brand, a retailer or the products it sold, it was the thousands of loyal team members now facing an uncertain future.
“This isn’t a tragedy without cause. Wilko should have thrived in a bargain retail sector that is otherwise strong, but it was run into the ground by the business owners.
“Money was siphoned out of the business for dividends, warnings about what needed to be done to save the business were not heeded and advice around what the business to do to thrive was not listened to.
“No worker caused the downfall of Wilko. But they will be the ones who will suffer – all as the owners get off scot-free. GMB will not stop campaigning for the owners of this debacle to be held to account.”
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9 Comments. Leave new
Warehouses closed, no stock in the stores, 80% of stock from Asia with 3 month lead times = it was never going to be saved.
Lots of former Woolworth stores will be back on the market.
Warehouses are still open as it stands.
Ahh, but is there anything in them? If stores are anything to go by, I’d assume no.
Inept ownership and weak leadership unable to stop family BS. The Wilkinson’s removed £77m in the last 10yrs; paid multi-million-pound dividends during covid as debts rose; hurriedly sold a DC to rent it back for £50m below market rate (new owners re-sold for £40m profit); refused to see the likes of B&M / Home Bargains as competitors instead looked at John Lewis. It’s not solely the Wilkinson family’s fault but most blame does lay with Lisa Wilkinson, suggesting otherwise is deeply disingenuous.
Absolutely.
An average of less than £8m dividends a year does not seem unreasonable for a 400 store chain that was profitable for most of that time.
You do not keep dividends if the company is going under unless you have no respect for the company that your grandfather established under hard times?
Even had other companies running under the Wilko name –
Such as the skin therapy brand – clever pots and others these were not only sold in Wilko stores but other big name stores but still in debt to nearly 30 million
Sad another high street store disappearing from the high street. Guess we are all to blame with our shopping habits changing over the years with all the Chinese sellers on eBay and Amazon
Someone needs to be held accountable for wilkos collapse as usual the hard working staff are the ones suffering, at the store I worked at we were a family a work family we kept the store going with a total of 18 staff at the most, but we kept going, never shutting 1 day during covid and carried on smiling amongst the tears as we waited to be told our fate, we got 6 days notice that we were being made redundant is that really what we deserved after 23 yrs service.