Half of Beales stores to close with 500 jobs lost

DEPARTMENT chain Beales is to shut half its stores, putting up to 500 jobs at risk as it struggles to find a buyer after collapsing last month.

Its 23 shops were kept open by administrators at KPMG in the hope of finding a white knight, but it was announced yesterday that 12 will shut, although there is no intention to close the rest.

The 139-year-old business called in administrators following failed attempts to raise cash, cut rent bills or find a buyer who would keep it operating as a going concern.

Beales employs 1,050 staff across all its stores, about half of whom now face redundancy.

Stores to be closed include an outlet in the chain’s home town of Bournemouth.

Others facing the axe are in Bedford, Hexham, Keighley, Mansfield, Perth, Peterborough, Yeovil, Spalding,

Tonbridge, Worthing and Wisbech.

Beales is the latest retailer to be crushed by the rise of online shopping and growing day-to-day costs, such as a higher minimum wage.

Chief executive Tony

Brown has also previously bemoaned the “lunacy” of high business rates, which are charged on firms with expensive town-centre property regardless of how sales are holding up.

Beales was taken into private ownership by Mr Brown in 2018, more than two decades after it floated on the London Stock Exchange.

Retailers, which have long called for an overhaul of rates, are expected to stump up £7.6bn for the tax this year at a time when they are struggling with an unprecedented squeeze from online rivals.

A flurry of retailers went into administration last year, and more failures are expected following brutal trading over Christmas.