{"id":139791,"date":"2018-06-11T23:50:04","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T23:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/poundworld-could-be-rescued-by-founder-from-administration\/"},"modified":"2018-06-11T23:50:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T23:50:04","slug":"poundworld-could-be-rescued-by-founder-from-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/poundworld-could-be-rescued-by-founder-from-administration\/","title":{"rendered":"Poundworld could be rescued by founder from administration"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Chris Edwards\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/6A04\/production\/_101904172_chrisedwards.jpg\"\/><figcaption>Image caption                                      Poundworld featured in a BBC series Pound Shop Wars                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Poundworld&#039;s founder has said he is considering buying back some of the discount retailer&#039;s stores after it fell into administration on Monday. <\/p>\n<p>Christopher Edwards, 67, who sold the business in 2015 for \u00a3150m to TPG Capital, said the chain could be saved with fresh management. <\/p>\n<p>But he said no deal had been finalised and the discounter would only survive another two weeks without a buyer, putting some 5,100 jobs at risk. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Edwards founded the firm in 1974.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Poundworld collapses into administration<\/li>\n<li>What&#039;s eating the pound shops?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Administrators Deloitte were called in after the indebted chain failed to strike a recue deal with another potential buyer, R Capital.<\/p>\n<p>Like many retailers, Poundworld has been battered by falling consumer confidence, rising overheads, the weaker pound and the growth of online shopping.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr Edwards, who started out running a market stall in Wakefield in 1974, said the current management team were most at fault.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Getty Images                                                    <\/figure>\n<p>He said the management at Poundworld had &quot;not adjusted&quot; to rising cost pressures, caused by the weaker pound, and had &quot;lost their profit margin&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>He also said a decision to introduce multi-price products after 20 years of only selling goods for a pound had confused shoppers. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;B&amp;M Bargains hasn&#039;t gone, Home Bargains hasn&#039;t gone, Wilko hasn&#039;t gone,&quot; he told BBC Radio 5 live.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;So for every store that goes down others are still thriving. It&#039;s about management style, that is what makes the business work.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Poundworld, which has 335 stores across the UK, expanded rapidly after the 2007 recession by targeting price-conscious shoppers. <\/p>\n<p>However, footfall has slumped over the last few years along with its sales. Losses for the financial year 2016-17 were \u00a317.1m, up from \u00a35.4m the year before.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Edwards said he felt &quot;sad and emotional&quot; about the firm&#039;s troubles, and had been negotiating to buy stores for the past six weeks. <\/p>\n<p>But he admitted he could not afford to do so alone and was looking for outside investors to back him. <\/p>\n<p>If a deal is struck, he said, he will look to renegotiate Poundworld&#039;s debts but admitted that getting the business back on track would be a &quot;task and a half&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I will know within two weeks if I can save the business,&quot; he told Radio 5 Live. &quot;And if no buyer is found by then, the firm will go to the wall.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Administrators Deloitte stress the stores will continue to trade as normal with no redundancies at this time.<\/p>\n<p>Investment company TPG, which still owns Poundworld, also controls the restaurant chain Prezzo whose landlords and creditors agreed a restructuring last month. <\/p>\n<h2>Chris Edwards - Poundworld&#039;s saviour?<\/h2>\n<figure><figcaption>Image caption                                      Poundworld featured in a BBC series Pound Shop Wars                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Born into a &quot;fairground family&quot; Mr Edwards, 67, spent his early years travelling the UK<\/li>\n<li>Founded Poundworld in 1974 and in the 1980s expanded into nightclubs<\/li>\n<li>The retailer really took off &quot;when a friend introduced us to importing from the Far East&quot;<\/li>\n<li>In 2015, Poundworld was sold to TPG Capital for \u00a3150m<\/li>\n<li>In 2016, Mr Edwards was parachuted into Poundstretcher by owners Crown Crest to help revive the business. He left in April<\/li>\n<li>He once said of the Poundworld sale that he was still &quot;challenged by that decision&quot; and whether it was the right move <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image caption Poundworld featured in a BBC series Pound Shop Wars Poundworld&#039;s founder has said he is considering buying back some of the discount retailer&#039;s stores after it fell into<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}