Wilko is closing the doors on its last remaining high street stores for the final time following its collapse.
The embattled 93-year-old discount retailer has been closing each of its 400 UK stores over the past month after falling into administration back in August.
Forty-one stores remained open but will shutter on Sunday, with almost all of Wilko’s 12,500 workers being made redundant.
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Wilko, which was founded in the 1930s in Leicester had been struggling for some time and its cash flow issues became evident last year when it deferred supplier payments and asked landlords to move to monthly rents.
It was dealt a major blow when credit insurers Allianz Trade and Atradius pulled cover in October.
Last month The Range snapped up Wilko’s brand, website and intellectual property for £5m and while over 120 Wilko stores were sold to discount rivals including Poundland and B&M, as many as 12,000 high street and head office jobs are expected to be lost.
Sky News reported that the retailer’s unsecured creditors are now set to receive as little as 4p in the pound of the money they are owed, according to first estimates by administrators PwC.
It emerged that Wilko owed £625m when it collapsed, including £548m to unsecured creditors.
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