LONDON — It’s the end of the road for British Home Stores, the retailer’s administrators said Thursday as they have been unable to find a buyer for the company, which collapsed into administration in April.
As a result of a failure to find a buyer, they said that 8,000 jobs are lost and 3,000 in question.
According to a statement issued by the administrators: “Despite the considerable efforts of the administrators and BHS senior management, it has not been possible to agree on a sale of the business. Although multiple offers were received, none were able to complete a deal due to the working capital required to secure the future of the company.”
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Philip Duffy, Duff & Phelps managing director and joint administrator, said “The British high street is changing and in these turbulent times for retailers, BHS has fallen as another victim of the seismic shifts we are seeing. The tireless work and goodwill of the existing management team and employees of BHS with the support of my team were not enough to change the fortunes of the company.”
British Home Stores, the struggling British general merchandise retailer that Sir Philip Green sold last year for a nominal sum, put nearly 11,000 jobs at risk.. The decision to file for the British equivalent of Chapter 11 came a little more than a year after Green sold BHS to Retail Acquisitions Ltd., a group of entrepreneurs, lawyers and bankers who formed the vehicle specifically to buy it.
The collapse of BHS and the gaping hole have sparked a series of Parliamentary and government investigations which are ongoing. Later this month, Green will appear before a joint Parliament committee to present evidence both about the sale and the pension fund.
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