Administrators to close remaining Beales stores

Will Wright and Steve Absolom from KPMG said that while they continue discussions with “a number of interested parties” for a sale of the business as a going concern, with no deliverable offers received for the business to date, they are making preparations to close the remaining stores and liquidating the stock.

In addition, a further 20 members of staff have been made redundant from the Beales head office in Bournemouth.

It is anticipated that stores will trade for a period of approximately eight weeks while the closing down sales are conducted.

The joint administrators said that, if a sale is not achieved, the precise closure dates for each store will vary, depending on the performance of the closing down sales.

Joint administrator, Will Wright, said: “We’d like to thank all Beales employees for their wholehearted support and assistance during the administration process. We understand that the failure to achieve a sale so far will come as disappointing news, but can assure them that we will continue in our efforts to secure some form of positive outcome.”

Beales entered administration in January, citing high rents, business rates and poor trading.