April 2, 2019 2.09 pm This story is over 67 months old

Lincoln Office Outlet store safe from closure

16 stores earmarked for closure
Office Outlet is now being marketed for sale. Photo: Joseph Verney for The Lincolnite

Office Outlet will close 16 stores and make 161 staff redundant, but Lincoln appears to be safe as it was not included in the closure list.

As previously reported, Office Outlet’s Lincoln store recently launched a closing down sale and it was unclear if any local jobs were at risk.

Around 1,200 UK jobs were at risk when Office Outlet was put up for sale in March. Restructuring partners at Deloitte were appointed on March 18 as joint administrators to SUK Retail Limited (trading as Office Outlet).

Redundancies were previously made at the company’s head office and distribution centre.

Deloitte has since announced that nine stores will close on April 7. A further seven stores will close on April 10, resulting in 161 redundancies. However, Lincoln’s store at the Valentine Retail Park (next to Farm Foods) looks to be safe.

The redundancies will take place at the 16 stores earmarked for closure. The redundancies will take effect two days after the relevant store closes. In the list the number of employees at each store is marked in brackets.

Store closures

April 7

  • Beckton (13)
  • Catterick (13)
  • Gloucester (9)
  • Newport, Isle of Wight (9)
  • Merton (7)
  • Newcastle (10)
  • Plymouth (9)
  • Staples Corner (8)
  • Stratford (10)

Total: 88 employees

April 10

  • Cardiff (11)
  • Carlisle (8)
  • Manchester (13)
  • Old Kent Road (9)
  • Southampton (12)
  • Walsall (8)
  • Weston Super Mare (12)

Total: 73 employees

Joint administrator Richard Hawes said: “While we are still open to a sale of the business in part or in whole, we cannot continue trading all the stores indefinitely in an administration process.

“Regrettably therefore we are announcing store closures that will result in a number of redundancies. We will be keeping staff informed of further developments in the coming weeks in what is a difficult time for all those involved.”

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