High street retail giant BHS has today called in the administrators after failing to find further funding or a potential buyer for the business, putting around 11,000 jobs at risk.
In what retail experts are calling the biggest retail collapse since Woolworths, international financial advisory firm Duff & Phelps has been appointed as administrator and attended talks this morning at BHS’s London headquarters.
In a statement announcing the move Duff & Phelps said that the directors have “no alternative but to put the group into administration to protect it for all creditors".
“The group has been undergoing restructuring and, as has been widely reported, the shareholders have been in negotiations to find a buyer for the business. These negotiations have been unsuccessful," continued the statement.
“In addition property sales have not materialised as expected in both number and value. Consequently, as a result of a lower than expected cash balance, the group is very unlikely to meet all contractual payments.”
BHS, which has overall debts of around £1.3bn, will continue to trade as usual whilst the administrators seek to sell it as a going concern.
Owner Dominic Chappell, whose Retail Acquisitions group purchased BHS from retail tycoon Sir Philip Green for £1 last year, wrote to staff yesterday to inform them that the company would enter administration today after attempts to find a buyer finally collapsed.
Informing staff that their wages for the month would be paid, former racing driver Chappell wrote: “It is with a deep heart that I have to report, despite a massive effort from the team, we have been unable to secure a funder or a trade sale.
“You all need to keep your heads held high," he added. “You have done a great job and remember it was always going to be very, very hard to turn around.”
The retailer had been in talks with several potential buyers about the sale of a number of its stores, including the UK’s largest sports retailer Sports Direct, but buyers were understood to be put off by the company’s huge pension deficit.
Dramatic decline
Founded in 1928, BHS was once seen as a stalwart of the British high street, but the company has seen its market share reduce dramatically over the past 15 years. Since 2000, BHS has seen its share of the UK clothing market drop by around 40%, and the company has run at a loss for the past seven years.
Its decline has been blamed on a variety of factors, including changing consumer tastes, competition from supermarkets, online and more agile budget retailers, unsustainable rents on their high street stores and huge debt and pension burdens.
BHS has previously admittedly that it cannot support its £571m pension deficit, which includes the cost to an insurer of buying it out.
Chairman of the BHS Pension Trustees Chris Martin told the Telegraph that today’s news would make “no difference to the outcome for our scheme members” as they would end up in the Pension Protection Fund [PPF].
Entering the government-administered PPF fund, designed to protect the pensions of companies that fall into insolvency – will mean that around 20,000 current and former BHS employees will see their future incomes fall by 10%.
Many of the retailer’s high street locations are also committed to long contracts paying well above market rates. In one example BHS were paying £404,000 a year for their Clydebank store, which estate agent Savills estimated at 65% above market value.
Last month BHS worked with KPMG on company voluntary arrangement (CVA) proposals aimed at helping the company reduce the rental burdens from its 164 stores, but the cuts did not solve BHS's other financial issues.
The CVA document warned that if BHS were to collapse it would cost creditors £1.3bn.
UK high streets ‘a net beneficiary’
Blogging about the news Richard Perks, director of retail research at Mintel, stated that it was likely the retail chain will now be broken up and sold store by store.
“Some of the best sites have already gone – notably the Oxford Street store, which has been taken by Poland's LPP as a flagship for its Reserved chain to enter the UK," said Perks. “That is the positive side of the failure of BHS. It removes a long term underperformer from the high street and replaces it with a new, more dynamic business.
“One has to feel sorry for the 11,000 staff who look likely to lose their jobs, but the UK high streets will be a net beneficiary of the disappearance of the BHS because it opens the way for new, better performing stores. If so, then retail employment overall could benefit, but that will not be much consolation to the BHS staff in the immediate future.”
Perks stated that it was possible that the group could be rescued, but any deal would probably mean finding a way to walk away from the pension liability.
About Tom Herbert
Tom is editor at AccountingWEB, responsible for all editorial content on the site. If you have a story that might interest us or wish to comment on the site's coverage get in touch via the site's private message function or Twitter DM (@AWebTom)
Replies
Please login or register to join the discussion.
No real surprise.
Their stores seemed to be stuck in the 1990's. With growing competition from other high street outlets, and from online, they failed to adapt.
agreed
it was the easiest call of the year , Green did well getting a £1 for it
.
The only surprise really is they they lasted this long.
They have no real market given M&S has come down market to occupy their "slightly cheaper than M&S" niche. Which is not much of a niche when there are heaps of cheaper shops if you want cheap tat.
High street rents are simply too high and the market is painfully slow to adjust to fill all the shops with active establishments.
The 80's and 90's shopping boom is long gone.
unfortunately upward only rent clauses were not outlawed
the only way to effect a rent reduction is by a CVA , they left that too late . this matter is very pressing and these clauses should be outlawed ,<EDITED>
Makes Osborne's much-trumpeted business rates cuts look puny
I wonder
if as much fuss over the loss of all those jobs will be made as was made over the imminent closure of TATA steel in Wales?
I suspect not.
I'm still not convinced that
George Osborne has the grip on the economy that he'd like us to believe he has?
I still think that many of his explanations and performance data is based on the growth in the South, rather than the reality of the country as a whole.
Until and unless the economy is stimulated I don't see any tangible changes. A boost to construction, above the Watford Gap might be a start. When I visited London, in the last couple of weeks, I lost count of the number of cranes which are an obvious sign of activity in the capital.
Seems to me George can talk a good talk and, little else?
Although I agree wholeheartedly
With all the sentiments expressed about BHS being stuck in the 90,s and perhaps doomed to failure at some point anyway - the business also seems to have been mismanaged, with various reports about new owners paying £8m in consultancy fees, it seems to me that the bigger the business corporate governance seems to fly out of the window. I think the old and new owners have many questions to answer on this.
Pension Deficit
Can anybody comment on where the figures come from?
According to last filed accounts (August 2014 as period extended to Feb 2016) the pension deficit is £111M out of total net liabilities of £256M - where does the £571M and £1.3B come from - would things have got that bad in such a short time - or were the accounts so wrong?
its a witch hunt instead of reporting the
News papers are intent on inventing it. Even after SPG took out a huge dividend that was out of borrowings the deficit was £80m which is why he has offered something near this. Why is the responsibility always on the employer the employees could have made AVC, and what were the pension fund trustees doing waiting for a sunny day