Poundworld to shutter all remaining stores

Poundworld will close all 190 remaining stores by 10 August after administrators Deloitte failed to find a buyer for the business at a price which satisfied them.

A total of 2,339 staff will be affected in this final wave of store closures, and the firm announced yesterday that all distribution centre operations will cease operations on Friday 20 July.

Poundworld began to face difficulty after a rough Christmas trading period which prompted it to seek a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA), only to abandon this after it received an expression of interest from a possible buyer.

A rescue bid offer recently made by Poundworld founder Chris Edwards was rejected by Deloitte, which said it wasn’t high enough. At the time Edwards said he had made “a substantial and credible offer”, which “hasn’t been given the respect it deserves”.

The former Poundworld boss said “the whole administration process has been handled badly” and he added if something doesn’t happen in the next few days, “the business will go to the wall”.

Clare Boardman, joint administrator, said: “We would like to thank all the employees for their continued support and commitment during this difficult time. We are keeping staff appraised of developments as they happen.”