Poundland to buy out 99p stores

barcode
Posts: 1495
Joined: Wed 29 Aug, 2007 19.36

Poundland places 99p Stores into administration

Discount chain 99p Stores has been placed into administration by Poundland, which bought the rival discount chain for £55m less than two years ago.

After Poundland bought the 99p Stores chain and its 252 shops in 2015, it began rebranding them and reassigning the leases. Sixty stores remained in a separate shell company, however, all of which have been closed.

Poundland said these “unprofitable” outlets were near to existing stores and that the vast majority of jobs had been transferred to those shops.

Announcing the group’s fall into administration on Monday, Steinhoff-owned Poundland blamed previous management for the failure.

“It’s no secret that the previous management of Poundland had difficulties digesting its 99p Stores acquisition”, it said. However, landlords could lose out on rental income now that their tenant has entered administration.

According to Poundland’s accounts for the year to March 27 2016, pre-tax profits fell 19 per cent to £35m. The filing showed that profits fell at pre-existing Poundland stores and that the converted 99p Stores branches incurred a pre-tax loss.

AlixPartners said on Monday that it had been appointed as administrators of 99p Stores.

“This appointment comes in support of Poundland Group Limited strategic decision to operate their entire retail estate under the Poundland fascia. No employees are affected by this appointment.”

Steinhoff, the South African retailer, bought the 76 per cent of Poundland it did not own for £450m in July last year.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/business ... li=BBoPWjQ
User avatar
Bail
Posts: 1142
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 21.41
Location: UK

Jovis wrote: Fri 06 Jan, 2017 03.16 Speaking of B&M, I think whoever was tasked with designing the signs for this B&M was given the wrong information about the store layout...

Image
I saw that and thought, wow that looks a hell of a lot like my local store...

Turns out it is ;)

https://goo.gl/maps/8CLHc4dLYKn
Image
cwathen
Posts: 1309
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 17.28

barcode wrote: Tue 28 Mar, 2017 00.03 Poundland places 99p Stores into administration

Discount chain 99p Stores has been placed into administration by Poundland, which bought the rival discount chain for £55m less than two years ago.

After Poundland bought the 99p Stores chain and its 252 shops in 2015, it began rebranding them and reassigning the leases. Sixty stores remained in a separate shell company, however, all of which have been closed.

Poundland said these “unprofitable” outlets were near to existing stores and that the vast majority of jobs had been transferred to those shops.
Explains the recent sudden closure of the ex-99p stores Poundland in Torquay then. Probably one of the last 99p stores to open, doing so in the middle of 2014 not long before the acquisition. Got rebranded in March 2016 with a big relaunch day where they even hired a DJ to promote Poundland 'launching in Torquay' despite it being about 30 seconds walk from the existing Poundland down the road, then it promptly closed down overnight with no ceremony a few weeks ago (with boards announcing that they'd 'moved' to the other store as if people wouldn't know that that store had been there for years).

Obviously though it would never be sustainable keeping both stores and that situation will be replicated up and down the country. Makes me wonder why they didn't try to acquire only part of the store estate and/or immediately close the branches that they didn't need, instead of doing rebrands (which may not have cost a fortune, but would still have costed) that have ended up lasting less than a year.
thegeek
Posts: 858
Joined: Sat 04 Jun, 2005 12.35

Are we allowed to talk about Poundworld in this thread?

My local branch has changed its facia slightly, with a big decal reading "more choice, more savings" covering up "everything £1".

(before and after.)
User avatar
WillPS
Posts: 2456
Joined: Tue 22 Apr, 2008 18.32
Location: Carlton
Contact:

thegeek wrote: Thu 04 May, 2017 18.53 Are we allowed to talk about Poundworld in this thread?

My local branch has changed its facia slightly, with a big decal reading "more choice, more savings" covering up "everything £1".

(before and after.)
It's happening everywhere, since the previous slogan is no longer true.

Poundland have also had their similar branding removed where it still existed.
Image
bilky asko
Posts: 1400
Joined: Sat 08 Nov, 2008 19.48

Poundworld were the first to offer items for more than £1 I believe, though only behind the till at first. This must have been about 7 years ago now.
Image
bilky asko
Posts: 1400
Joined: Sat 08 Nov, 2008 19.48

Well, my local Poundworld (featured on some documentary for being one of Poundworlds shittest branches) has shut. But my local (ex-Woolworths) Poundland is getting an extension!

Image

Well, it's less of an extension and more of a better utilisation of the floorspace from the Woolworths days - there must have been loads of wasted space before, considering it used to be on two floors, and they barely used half of the top floor previously.
Image
thegeek
Posts: 858
Joined: Sat 04 Jun, 2005 12.35

My local Poundland (Leyton, East London) apparently catering for their Scottish clientele.

Image
Critique
Posts: 980
Joined: Mon 17 Aug, 2009 10.37
Location: Suffolk

The B&M in our town centre, which is ex-Poundland and ex-99p stores, is a mildly interesting one from a branding point of view, as B&M have put a little bit of effort in their signage for once. When taking over the store, they painted the window frames, most of the fascia is backlit (although this may be because the fittings for backlighting were already in place), and they recently took down the old metal frame above the entrance that dates back to when QD occupied the space, meaning that the logo above the door didn't have to fit into a strange triangular space. The back of the shop backs onto a small car park/street, and even here they took the QD vinyls off the covered up back windows and stuck nice silver B&M ones on (which is something that neither 99p stores or Poundland bothered to do) - all in all a good effort!

At least so I thought. I walked past the other day and noticed that at the front where a couple of the windows have been vinyled over with B&M branding, you can fairly clearly see the previous Poundland vinyl underneath, as they didn't bother to take it off first!
Martin Phillp
Posts: 1469
Joined: Wed 11 May, 2011 01.28

Poundland have added an Elvis impersonator as a voiceover to their self-checkouts.
TVF's London Lite.
Post Reply