WHSL Realisations Limited (08856837): administration
- Status
- Administration ended
- Administration began
- 2023-08-10
- Administrators
- Zelf Hussain, Edward Williams, Jane Steer
- Administrators' firm
- PwC
- Formerly
- Wilkinson Hardware Stores, Limited; Castlegate Holdco Limited
- Incorporated
- 2014-01-22
- Location
- Leeds
- Industry
- 70100 Activities of head offices
Why it went into administration
- Funding withdrawn / unable to refinance
- Cash flow / liquidity pressure
- Supply chain disruption
- Weak consumer demand
- Sustained trading losses
- Credit insurance / supplier credit withdrawn
- Competition / price pressure
- COVID-19
- Property / lease costs
- Rising costs / inflation
From the administrators' statement
wilko was incorporated on 13 February 1941, having started to trade in the 1930s as a family business, running a hardware shop in Leicester. From inception, wilko grew to a national chain of over 400 stores, continuing to trade as a family run seller of hardware and homeware goods. wilko was the main trading entity in the Wider Group, employing 12,041 team members, holding all leases and freehold property for the business and holding over £105m of stock (with a further c.£10m of goods in transit).
wilko was the sponsoring employer for the Pension Scheme and a guarantor for the HUK facility. Barclays was also a secured lender to this entity.
WHSL was incorporated on 22 January 2014 in order to provide centralised head office functions for the Companies and the Wider Group (as reflected in Appendix A). These functions were run from headquarters in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. WHSL employed 236 team members at the date of appointment. The HUK borrowing facility was provided to WHSL as primary borrower .(to support the trading activities of wilko and wilko.com). WHSL also acted as guarantor in respect of the Pension Scheme. In addition to holding equity investments in the various wilko entities, WHSL held minority shareholdings in two non-group entities, being Bullfix and StreetDrone. WHSL also holds some of the intangible brand and domain name assets.
Administrators' statement of proposals (2023-10-11) · Companies House register