{"id":181978,"date":"2023-11-29T14:13:29","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T14:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/?p=181978"},"modified":"2023-11-29T14:13:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T14:13:29","slug":"wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilko boss plans to reopen 50 branches &#8211; and three before Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>The great Wilko comeback? Retail boss reveals plans to re-open 50 branches of the high street chain &#8211; including three before Christmas<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Boss of The Range &#8211; which bought Wilko brand &#8211; plans to reopen up to 300 stores<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Wilko could be making a comeback as a retail boss has revealed plans to reopen nearly 300 branches of the high street chain across the UK &#8211; with three set to reopen before Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>Billionaire founder of The Range Chris Dawson is reportedly working on deals which are\u00a0&#8216;with the lawyers&#8217; to get 50 shops reopened and he plans to expand further.<\/p>\n<p>Wilko branding and intellectual property was acquired by CDS Superstores (which trades as The Range) for a reported \u00a35million after it went bust in August this year &#8211; forcing the closure of more than 400 stores and leaving thousands out of a job.<\/p>\n<p>The first three Wilko stores will open in early December in Plymouth and Exeter, both in Devon, and Luton, Bedfordshire the retail firm revealed.<\/p>\n<p>Visiting the Plymouth branch last week ahead of its December 1 opening date, chief executive Alex Simpkin told PlymouthLive there were &#8216;about 50 Wilkos opening&#8217; as well as the three with scheduled dates.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/29\/13\/78372197-12804863-image-a-82_1701266210720.jpg\" height=\"432\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Wilko could be making a comeback as a retail boss has revealed plans to reopen nearly 300 branches of the high street chain across the UK &#8211; with three set to reopen before Christmas (pictured: Wilko store in Orpington closes\u00a0 for the last time on October 5 this year)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/29\/13\/78372199-12804863-image-a-83_1701266214410.jpg\" height=\"410\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Wilko branding and intellectual property was acquired by CDS Superstores (which trades as The Range) for a reported \u00a35million after it went bust in August this year &#8211; forcing the closure of more than 400 stores and leaving thousands out of a job<\/p>\n<p>He said those were &#8216;with the lawyers&#8217; before adding that 300 stores will eventually be opened &#8216;more or less where there were, in most cases, ex-Wilko stores&#8217;.<\/p>\n<h3>Where will the new Wilko shops open and when?\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p>Plymouth,\u00a0Devon<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Address: Unit A, Armada Centre, Mayflower Street, PL1 1QL<\/li>\n<li>Opening date: December 1<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Exeter, Devon<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Address: Unit 100, Guildhall Shopping Centre, EX4 3HP<\/li>\n<li>Opening date: December 1<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Luton, Bedfordshire<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Address: 141\/147 Arndale Centre, LU1 2TN<\/li>\n<li>Opening date: December 8<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mr Simpkin added that he does not know how long it will take.<\/p>\n<p>Poundland owners Pepco agreed to buy 71 Wilko sites, with 64 former stores pledged to reopen under the Poundland name by the end of the year. B&amp;M also had the opportunity to buy as many as 51 ex-Wilko stores.<\/p>\n<p>This comes after\u00a0he ex-Wilko boss Lisa Wilkinson yesterday denied her greed bankrupted the much-loved chain, as she told MPs it &#8216;ran out of cash&#8217; before it could be salvaged.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Wilkinson, the granddaughter of the firm&#8217;s founder JK Wilkinson, said she was &#8216;devastated&#8217; by the demise of the business as she was quizzed by a House of Commons committee.<\/p>\n<p>She offered an apology to the 12,000 people who lost their jobs as part of the collapse of the 93-year-old chain, which also left a \u00a350million shortfall in its pension fund.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I don&#8217;t know how to put into words how sad I am that we have let down all our team members, all our customers, our suppliers, and our advisers,&#8217; Ms Wilkinson told MPs.<\/p>\n<p>Her grilling by the Commons&#8217; Business and Trade Committee followed severe criticism of Wilko bosses for shelling out \u00a377million to its owners and former shareholders in the decade before its collapse.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/29\/13\/78372205-12804863-image-a-84_1701266306542.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Wilko in Ely, Cambridgeshire clears its shelves with 70% reductions before its closure on October 6<\/p>\n<p>The Wilkinson family are reported to have received \u00a39million in dividends since 2019.<\/p>\n<p>She partly blamed the &#8216;mini-Budget&#8217; of ex-prime minister Liz Truss in September last year, which was accompanied by financial markets meltdown, for Wilko&#8217;s collapse.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Wilkinson said the company was in the middle of negotiating a new loan arrangement when interest rates began to soar.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We were about to enter into secured lending arrangements with Macquarie when the 2022 mini-Budget happened,&#8217; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Literally we were in the midst of that, and at that point the interest terms on that loan were hiked massively and that became infeasible. So, that was a contributor.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12804863\/The-great-Wilko-comeback-Retail-boss-reveals-plans-open-50-branches-high-street-chain-including-three-Christmas.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The great Wilko comeback? Retail boss reveals plans to re-open 50 branches of the high street chain &#8211; including three before Christmas Boss of The Range &#8211; which bought Wilko [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wilko boss plans to reopen 50 branches - and three before Christmas - Hot World Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wilko boss plans to reopen 50 branches - and three before Christmas - Hot World Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The great Wilko comeback? 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Retail boss reveals plans to re-open 50 branches of the high street chain &#8211; including three before Christmas Boss of The Range &#8211; which bought Wilko [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas\/","og_site_name":"Hot World Report","article_published_time":"2023-11-29T14:13:29+00:00","author":"Tracy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_image":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-Christmas.jpg","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tracy","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas\/","url":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas\/","name":"Wilko boss plans to reopen 50 branches - and three before Christmas - Hot World Report","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-11-29T14:13:29+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-29T14:13:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/#\/schema\/person\/74db1979fe71b5ea01513ec1ce5bc609"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/wilko-boss-plans-to-reopen-50-branches-and-three-before-christmas\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"World News","item":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/category\/world-news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Wilko boss plans to reopen 50 branches &#8211; and three before Christmas"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/","name":"Hot World Report","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/#\/schema\/person\/74db1979fe71b5ea01513ec1ce5bc609","name":"Tracy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d4e61f3f3828292a4daf0b7f321ab5a8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d4e61f3f3828292a4daf0b7f321ab5a8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Tracy"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}