Stationery chain falls into administration
Excessive Avenue stationery chain Paperchase has fallen into administration placing 820 jobs in danger.
It comes after the agency, which has 106 shops within the UK and Eire, didn’t strike a rescue deal.
Directors Begbies Traynor mentioned the retailers would proceed buying and selling as regular for now and it might present updates sooner or later.
It added that Paperchase would solely proceed accepting reward playing cards for one more two weeks.
It’s the second time since 2021 that the enterprise has fallen into administration.
The corporate has had a difficult few years and extra lately has been hit by rising prices and falling gross sales.
It additionally has shops in prepare stations, which have suffered from lowered footfall on account of extra folks now working from house.
A number of weeks in the past, Paperchase mentioned it had put itself up on the market and that numerous patrons had been within the enterprise.
However on Tuesday Begbies Traynor mentioned in a press release: “Sadly, regardless of a complete gross sales course of, no viable gives had been obtained for the corporate, or its enterprise and property.
“Nevertheless, there was important curiosity within the Paperchase model and attendant mental property.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Sky News reported that Tesco was on the brink of buying Paperchase’s brand name and other intellectual property, however not its retailers. The grocery store declined to remark.
Paperchase, which was based in 1968, went by way of a type of insolvency proceedings 4 years in the past to chop shops and scale back prices.
It was then purchased out of administration in 2021 throughout the pandemic in a rescue deal which noticed the lack of round 500 jobs.
However Paperchase was then offered once more in August final yr to a non-public funding agency led by the retail investor Steve Curtis.
Begbies mentioned that it might proceed to “monitor buying and selling” in Paperchase’s shops and supply additional updates on the enterprise’s future quickly.