JONES BOOTMAKER SAVED AGAIN

JONES Bootmaker is set to change hands for the second time in less than a year.

Investment firm Endless is said to have lined up the struggling footwear chain to be sold to family-run retailer Pavers Shoes.

The deal is expected to save the majority of Jones’ 475 jobs, with 42 of its 47 stores being transferred to Pavers ownership.

York-based Pavers is not believed to be buying Jones’s head office.

Jones started life in 1857 with its first store in Bayswater, London. It was rescued from administration last year after Endless snapped up the firm, saving 72 of its 170 shops. Pavers was founded with a £200 bank loan in 1971 by Catherine Paver, who worked at the company until she was 88. It is now run by her son Stuart and has about 130 shops and 1,300 staff.

Pavers is expected to buy Jones’s assets out of an administration managed by Big Four accountancy firm Ernst & Young.

Endless’s decision to sell Jones again is understood to have been considered against the wider backdrop of the struggling High Street, suggesting that Jones would be better off as part of a bigger group.