1,000 jobs at risk as Homebase closes 60 stores
MORE than 1,000 jobs are at risk as DIY chain Homebase prepares to reveal next week that it will close 60 stores.
Hilco, which bought the struggling company for just £1 in May, has drawn up proposals to axe around a quarter of its 249 stores.
In another blow to Britain’s struggling high streets Homebase is allegedly set to file a company voluntary arrangement, a form of insolvency that allows retailers to escape agreements with landlords.
It comes as House of Fraser is searching for funding to prevent the firm collapsing. The department store chain suffered a fresh blow last week when C.banner, the Chinese owner of toy shop Hamleys, IT will go down as one of the most disastrous retail acquisitions in UK business history.
Homebase, cultivated for the first half of its four decades under the ownership of Sainsbury’s where it carved out a niche in the DIY and garden products markets, took less than two years to fall apart under the pulled its planned investment. The firm was only willing to inject cash if the high street icon closed more than half of its stores.
The Daily Express has revealed how high street banks are closing at a “relentless rate”, with nearly 3,000 DAVID SHAND City Editor shutting their doors since 2015. The number of Homebase store closures could be as high as 80, though that is thought to include 17 which have already closed.
Specialist firm Alvarez & Marsal is expected to handle the process big mistake, while closing concessions such as Laura Ashley showed it was not in tune with shopping tastes here. It admitted defeat after writing off more than £500million by selling Homebase to Hilco for £1.
The retail climate is harsh enough. It will take more than a jobbing handyman to make good this damage. just months after it advised Toys R Us on a company voluntary arrangement before it collapsed.
Around 300 jobs have already been slashed at Homebase’s head office in Milton Keynes and horticultural buying office in Swindon.