230 jobs saved as discount retailer bought out of administration

Nottinghamshire-baseed discount retailer JTF has been bought out of administration, saving 230 jobs.

Poundstretcher boss Aziz Tayub has bought the stricken chain and has revealed plans to expand the JTF brand by opening 15 new branches.

BusinessLive says the deal to buy JTF was sealed last week, with the new owners planning to open the first new JTF outlet in Tamworth this Friday.

Tuxford-based JTF Mega Discount Warehouse collapsed into administration in July after a deal to sell the company fell through at the last minute.

Tayub told BusinessLive: “We’re delighted to welcome JTF to our Poundstretcher family and to be working with the 200-or-so staff in the business.

“We’ve acquired the leases of 10 stores and will be reopening them in the coming weeks. We are recruiting most of the workforce back, apart from one manager who has found another job. The aim is to have 24,000 different product lines on sale, as well as online under the JTF brand.”

Tayub added that outlets in Stoke, Leeds, Kidderminster and Newcastle-on-Tyne will open over the next few weeks, followed by Barrow-in-Furness, Hucknall in Notts, Preston, Lincoln and Hull.

He said: “JTF were doing well two years ago but things went downhill to the point where trade was almost half of where it was in 2019.

“We will have good prices compared to their old prices, and a good range of products and more being added on a daily basis. It was not a lack of customers, but a lack of stock that affected the business.

“Some of the Poundstretcher stock will go into the stores but there’s a big range that we’ve started bringing in already for them.

“Our future plans are to open another 15 JTF stores by the end of March next year, including Washington, Warrington, Walsall and South Wales, and we are already in negotiations over half a dozen of them.”