Well known stationery chain Paperchase entered administration in January 2023. This is the second time the chain has entered this process, and the future for the chain seemed bright after it was bought out of administration in 2021. Following this recent collapse in to administration, it was announced that Tesco has bought Paperchase’s brand and intellectual property. Tesco has however confirmed it has not purchased the chain’s 106 shops in the UK and Ireland, leaving a question mark over the future of Paperchase’s 820 staff.
In other retail news, the well-known high street clothing brand Joules joined the growing list of once flourishing high street retail names which have suffered financial distress during the course of 2022, having entered administration in November 2022.
A £34 million rescue deal, involving Next and Tom Joule (the founder of Joules) was reached in December 2022 and as a result around 100 stores were saved, with 1,500 jobs across stores and the head office being protected. Not all the stores could be saved unfortunately and 19 stores were closed resulting in 133 redundancies.
Shop closures in the UK have hit their highest total in five years, with more than 17,000 stores shutting their doors in 2022. However, only around a third of closures were due to formal insolvencies, according to the Centre for Retail Research. Nearly a third of the closures were branches of chains which were closing some of their sites to save money and rationalise the business.
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