Hundreds of liquor stores liquidated—with 1,700 job losses

06 November 2009

By Mike Brooke

THE closure of nearly 400 liquor stores with more than 1,700 job losses has been announced by company administrators.

The First Quench Retailing group which owns Threshers, Wine Rack, Bottoms Up, The Local, Haddows and Victoria Wine stores has been in the hands of administrators KPMG since last Thursday (October 29).

It has 1,200 off-licenses around Britain with 6,300 staff. The shock closures announced at the administrators’ offices in London last night will result in 1,738 redundancies.

“Unfortunately 373 loss-making stores are to be closed after we reviewed the viability of the network,” said joint-administrator Richard Fleming of KPMG.

“Liquidation sales will take place at each of the stores scheduled to be closed.”

Stocks of wines and spirits are being sold off at a discount from today (November 6).

Around two-thirds of the stores being closed are trading until November 25, the rest until December 2, depending on stock levels.

“The remaining stores will continue to trade while we seek a buyer,” Mr Fleming added. “They are trading well. We are confident of a sale in the coming weeks.”

Details of the stores to be closed, which are running liquidation sales are on the Thresher Group website from noon today (Friday).