Beales to close all remaining stores as no buyer found

Beales is set to close all its remaining stores after failing to find a buyer for the business.

The British department store chain, which began trading in Bournemouth in 1881 and is one of the UK’s oldest, fell into administration last month after struggling with high rents, business rates and poor Christmas trading.

Administrators KPMG announced at the time that the chain’s 23 stores would continue to trade and that there would be no immediate redundancies, though the department store's website went offline. Soon after, KPMG announced 12 of the chain’s 23 stores would close.

One of Britain's oldest department store chains to close

On Tuesday evening, the accountancy firm announced the remaining 11 stores would be closed, though it said it would “continue discussions with a number of interested parties for a sale of the business as a going concern”.

Beales has also cut a further 20 staff members at its head office in Bournemouth, according to KPMG.

The stores' closing down sales are expected to last for around eight weeks.

Join administrator Will Wright said in a statement: “We'd like to thank all Beales employees for their wholehearted support and assistance during the administration process.

“We understand that the failure to achieve a sale so far will come as disappointing news, but can assure them that we will continue in our efforts to secure some form of a positive outcome.”

For the year to March 2019, the department store chain reported a widening loss of 3.1 million pounds, up from 1.3 million pounds the previous year.

Photo credit: Beales, Facebook