Threshers acquires Unwins

Threshers has bought 200 Unwins stores, after the UK multiple specialist went into administration last month.

Threshers has bought 200 Unwins stores, after the UK multiple specialist went into administration last month.

Threshers has confirmed that it is its intention to re-open the stores as soon as possible and it hopes to make some 1,200 jobs available. This will come as a relief to ex-Unwins staff who were told not to expect their final pay-packet or any redundancy money from the company after administrators KPMG closed all 350 Unwins stores last month. A KPMG spokesman had confirmed that the priority was to find buyers for the company’s assets in order to pay off creditors as soon as possible, but added that staff, as unsecured creditors, “would not be at the head of the queue”.

Unwins had been a family-owned business for 167 years until its sale to DM Private Equity in March last year for £32m. The company had planned to use the sale of the company’s freeholds to wipe out some £21m of debt that it had bought but, as reported in db news analysis last month, the plan failed to work. Unwins stores were left without stock and facing an uncertain future.

Threshers says it is planning to eventually re-brand all 200 of the Unwins stores.