Around 100 jobs to be cut at Poundworld head office
Poundworld has cut around 100 jobs from its head office as administrators struggle to find a buyer for the business.
The Wakefield-headquartered retailer, owned by private equity firm TPG Capital, collapsed last week. This put 5,100 jobs across all sites at risk.
However, Poundworld’s administrator Deloitte has had to make 98 staff redundant at the company’s head office in Normanton. It is understood around 270 people are employed at the site.
Deloitte asked for bids for Poundworld to be submitted by last Friday. However, a buyer for the whole business may not come forward, instead interested parties could pick up sections of its estate.
The budget chain has 335 stores, which are still operational.
Announcing the administration status last week, Deloitte said the stores would continue to trade as normal with no redundancies at that time.
A statement said: “Like many high street retailers, Poundworld has suffered from high product cost inflation, decreasing footfall, weaker consumer confidence and an increasingly competitive discount retail market.
Clare Boardman, joint administrator at Deloitte, said at the time: “The retail trading environment in the UK remains extremely challenging and Poundworld has been seeking to address this through a restructure of its business.
“Unfortunately, this has not been possible.”
TPG said putting the business into administration was a “difficult decision”, and that the retailer was affected by a decline in the UK retail sector. TPG, which bought a majority stake in Poundworld in 2015, also controls the restaurant chain Prezzo whose landlords and creditors agreed a restructuring last month.
Poundworld offers around 8,000 product lines mostly priced at £1, including groceries, toiletries, household cleaning and confectionery items. Its collapse comes after both Toys R Us and Maplin fell into administration earlier this year, and just days after House of Fraser announced plans to shut 31 stores, affecting around 6,000 jobs.
