Wilko on the brink as job cuts U-turn could be announced today

In a dramatic U-turn it has emerged that job losses at Wilko could be announced as soon as today (Thursday) after administrators turned away a rescue bid.

According to the GMB union, which met with administrators PwC yesterday, a job loss programme at the stricken retailer could restarted – just a day after it was announced that any redundancy programme had been paused to allow a rescue bid.

The union said that an offer to buy the entire Wilko business had been dismissed by PwC after it failed to pass “basic checks”.

In a statement, the GMB said: “In the meeting they advised that the company were still actively assessing a number of bids. However, they also advised that the bid which had been received for the entire business has yet to pass basic checks.”

It is thought that this bid came in from private equity firm M2 Capital and that is PwC hadn’t received the further information it needed from the firm by 5pm yesterday, then job cuts would resume as early as today. These redundancies are thought to be from Wilko’s head office, distribution centres and back office functions.

The GMB added: ““Whilst this does mean that there are bids on the table for a significant proportion of the
stores and the online business, we still cannot guarantee the future of any jobs moving
forwards at this point.”

PwC declined to make a statement.