Britain's Woolworths, MFI go bust
Posted
Major British retailer Woolworths has gone into administration, the BBC reported, after another high-street chain, MFI, announced it was calling in administrators.
Tens of thousands of jobs are potentially threatened by the collapse of Woolworths which has 25,000 staff, the BBC said, reporting that a formal decision was due to be taken by the company's board later in the day.
Financial services firm Deloitte will be appointed as administrators to the chain as well as to Entertainment UK, which supplies books and DVDs to supermarkets, the broadcaster's business editor Robert Peston said.
The report came shortly after MFI, which has more than 1,000 staff in over 100 stores across the country, announced it had called in administrators.
MFI chief executive Gary Favell led a management buy-out of the firm in September, but within days it emerged that he was seeking a three-month rent-free period from landlords.
London's Daily Telegraph had reported an MFI executive as saying the firm had only "days to resolve" the dispute, adding that an unnamed administrator was understood to be ready to take control of the MFI if talks failed.
- AFP
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