Wilko brand set to be bought by The Range in £5m deal

The Range is finalising a £5m deal to buy the Wilko brand after a rescue deal for the wider business fell through.

The agreement, which will be announced later on Wednesday, means it will own Wilko’s website and could choose to stock and sell some of its products.

But the deal will not prevent Wilko shops disappearing from Britain’s High Streets, with 400 stores to close by early October.

Thousands of staff will likely lose their jobs as a result of the closures.

Wilko’s rivals have been snapping up parcels of the company since administrators were unable to find a buyer for the whole business.

Retail analyst Catherine Shuttleworth said buying the brand was “a smart move”.

“The challenge with Wilko was never about the brand itself but about how the business was run. So buying the brand is potentially a really smart move for the Range if they can use it to their advantage across their estate either on line or in branding stores in particular geographies.”

The company, founded in 1930 and a stalwart of High Streets up and down the country, fell into administration in August as it struggled with sharp losses and a cash shortage.

The billionaire owner of HMV, Doug Putman, initially hoped to keep as many as 300 Wilko shops open, but his bid failed and no other bidders were interested in running the shops under the Wilko name.

On Tuesday, the owner of Poundland agreed a deal to take on the leases of about 71 Wilko shops, which will reopen under its own brand.

Another rival B&M has also agreed to buy 51 of Wilko’s shops in a £13m deal.

However redundancies are still likely for most of the 12,500 staff at the family-owned business.

So far, 1,016 redundancies have been announced at stores that are closing.

Another 299 redundancies have taken place at its two distribution centres in Worksop and Newport, which will close on Friday next week, while more than 260 redundancies have been made at its support centre.