Hundreds of Wilko employees across the UK will be without a job on Monday after the only potential bidder for the retailer missed the deadline set by administrator PwC.
It has been revealed that more than 250 Wilko support centre employees will have their last day with the embattled UK retailer on Monday.
This news comes just days after the GMB union - which represents 3,000 of Wilko’s 12,500 staff - said all redundancies at Wilko had been suspended "while the administrator considers further bids".
Hundred of jobs to be lost at Wilko next week
Wilko currently has 408 stores across the UK (at the time of publication) and more than 12,500 employees.
The UK retail chain announced it had fallen into administration earlier this month (August) after failing to secure a rescue deal, putting all its stores and jobs associated with the business at risk.
Following a meeting with administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), earlier this week GMB revealed redundancies had been put on hold while further bids were considered.
But the union now says a bidder, reported to be M2 Capital, had not submitted the evidence needed to show it could buy the business, meaning the redundancy process would resume "almost instantly".
PwC also said there had been no viable offers for Kin Limited, a subsidiary of the company.
Kin has been forced to close itself resulting in 14 job losses.
Despite having held ongoing talks with interested parties over the past few weeks, PwC said it is "now clear that no viable offer" has been put forward that will save the business in its entirety.
GMB said: “As a result of this unwelcome development, the redundancy processes which were paused two days ago are set to restart almost instantly.”
PwC added redundancies will begin on Monday with 269 support centre workers set to lose their jobs.
There will also be further redundancies across the company’s two distribution centres from early next week.
The administrator said discussions are continuing with bidders interested in buying parts of the business.
Wilko stores at risk of closing
There are 408 Wilko stores across the UK which are all at risk of closing as early as the next few weeks, according to the GMB union.
The union revealed recently that Wilko stores would begin closing "within weeks" with PwC confirming there would be “redundancies and store closures in the future".
Wilko stores are located across the UK including in places like London (nine stores), Leeds (seven) and Leicester (five).
See the map below for the full list of Wilko stores located across the UK:
These store closures put more than 12,500 jobs at risk across the UK.
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