Wilko branches in Leamington and Kenilworth are likely to close after rescue deal fails

The Leamington and Kenilworth branches of ailing high street retail chain Wilko are likely to close as things stand.

Billionaire HMV owner Doug Putman wanted to keep up to 300 Wilko shops open, but his bid failed amid rising costs which complicated the deal. Thousands of jobs are at risks and the future of hundreds of stores in uncertain.

Rival retailers such as Poundland or The Range, could buy some of Wilko’s remianing stores.

Last week (Wednesday September 6) Wilko published the list of 52 stores it will close on either tomorrow (Tuesday, September 12) or Thursday (September 14) costing 1,016 jobs.

Other redundancies elsewhere in the company have also been confirmed by administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

There will be another 299 jobs lost at two Wilko warehouses, plus a further 17 redundancies at its support centre.

This comes on top of 269 job losses already announced at the Wilko support centre, plus 14 other redundancies at a subsidiary firm, which were confirmed by PwC last week. Wilko collapsed into administration last month, putting more than 400 stores and 12,500 jobs at risk.

The future of the chain has been up in the air since then.

It was announced last week that B&M is to buy up to 51 stores in a deal worth £13 million.

However, B&M has not confirmed which Wilko shops it has bought, or if it will save any jobs.

The stores are expected to be rebranded as B&M.

Wilko CEO Mark Jackson has published an open letter online which can be read here https://shorturl.at/ajuwK

Meanwhile Aldi is urging staff affected by the collapse of Wilko get in touch as the budget retailer is currently recruiting for more than 6,000 jobs across the UK.

The German discount retailer, is currently on a recruitment drive after announcing plans to open 20 new stores by the end of they year.