150 jobs lost as Clas Ohlson pulls out of UK high street

Swedish home improvement chain Clas Ohlson is closing its UK store network, bar one, with the loss of 150 jobs.

Stores in Manchester’s Arndale, Liverpool’s Clayton Square shopping centre, London, Kingston-upon-Thames, and St Albans will shut, although its Reading outlet will remain open.

The company also announced it is closing its four high street stores in Germany, as the increase in online trading continues to affect the retail sector.

Its closure plans will cost the firm around £18m.

The strategy is an about turn for the company, which sells everything from gardening tools to electrical appliances and leisure products, after announcing plans only two years ago for rapid expansion of its network.

It will now concentrate on building up its online presence, while also maintaining its store network in Scandinavia.

The company said: “After 10 years, the business in the UK is continuing to incur significant losses, despite measures in recent years to optimise the store network.

“The evaluation of the pilot of four stores in Germany has revealed that the operations will be unable to deliver on plan and, therefore, the right conditions are not in place to achieve profitability.”

The statement added: “Against this background, the store network in the UK and Germany will be discontinued and in line with the new direction our presence in these markets will be concentrated to online shopping.

“This direction will allow us to develop a scalable business model for the UK and Germany initially, and then later in other markets.”

No closure dates have been set, yet, and the company explained: “The planning of the closures of the relevant stores will be made following careful consideration of the lease terms for each store so as to optimise total discontinuation costs.”