The chain of household goods stores Wilko announced on Thursday that it had filed for bankruptcy because it had failed to find buyers or new financing in sufficient time, and its approximately 12,000 employees are now seeing their jobs threatened. “Over the past six months Wilko has been very open that we are considering options to accelerate a recovery plan,” said general manager Mark Jackson in an open letter posted Thursday on the distributor’s website.
“We have tried everything to save this incredible company but we have to admit with regret that we have no choice but to make the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy,” he adds. The manager specifies that the company has received “a significant level of expressions of interest, including indicative offers which, we believe, would have met all our financial criteria for recapitalization, but without certainty of being able to complete the transaction on time and given our cash flow, we had no choice” but to file for bankruptcy.
“We must now strive to preserve as many jobs as possible (…) by working with the appointed administrators”, concludes Mr. Jackson. The company, which had sales of £1.2bn for its full year to the end of January 2022 (latest figure available), has 400 stores in the UK.
