Poundworld’s founder Chris Edwards has criticised how the retailer was run before it collapsed, saying the business was “very badly managed” by its private equity owner TPG Capital.
Mr Edwards founded Poundworld in 1974 and sold it to TPG for £150 million three years ago.
The budget retailer’s final stores are set to close by August 10 after the chain fell into administration on June 11, with TPG blaming the collapse on the decline in the UK retail sector and a change in consumer behaviour.
They started selling multi-price products completely ignoring Poundworld's USP
Chris Edwards
However, Mr Edwards, who tried to buy around 180 stores out of administration, has torn into TPG, saying Poundworld’s collapse wasn’t related to Brexit, the internet, or sterling’s devaluation.
Mr Edwards said: “The new owners made expensive decisions that the business couldn’t take.
“They started recruiting people from supermarket backgrounds, who didn’t understand the discount, fixed-price model and with this they blew the firm’s wage structure.
“Then, they started selling multi-price products completely ignoring Poundworld’s USP, which was its amazing range of products that were all priced at just a pound.”
Mr Edwards said he raised concerns to TPG, sometimes through his lawyers, about how Poundworld was being run, but that his comments “fell on deaf ears”.
The retail boss also accused Poundworld’s administrators at Deloitte of deliberately slowing down the sale process to generate money from the liquidation of the stock.
“In my opinion the administrator deliberately slowed down any potential sale of the business to generate more cash, with no thought for the jobs that would be lost.
“In the last seven weeks, I’d estimate the business turned over approximately £40 million and we’ll wait and see where this money ends up ,” he added.
Source
Plagiarism is the copying & pasting of others work without giving credit to the original author or artist. Plagiarized posts are considered spam.
Spam is discouraged by the community, and may result in action from the cheetah bot.
More information and tips on sharing content.
If you believe this comment is in error, please contact us in #disputes on Discord
Congratulations @tolyamba! You received a personal award!
Click here to view your Board of Honor
Congratulations @tolyamba! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!