Nursery and maternity retailer Mothercare is lining up administrators for its UK business, which will see 79 stores closing across Britain and Northern Ireland.
Administrators are expected to be announced soon, with 2,500 employees facing redundancy if no buyer can be found as part of the process. The company called in advisers KPMG just last week.
In the financial year ending March 2019, Mothercare generated profits of £28.3m internationally, while the UK arm of the business lost £36.6m in the same period.
Monday’s official statement from the retail group read:
“Mothercare announces that Notices of Intent to appoint administrators to the Company’s active trading subsidiary, Mothercare UK Limited and Mothercare Business Services Limited, which provides certain services to Mothercare UK, are being filed with the Court today.”
It also emphasised that other arms of the Mothercare group are not covered by this notices of intent and will continue to trade in the normal course of business.