BHS owner Dominic Chappell said he’ll seek to regain control of the struggling UK retailer that’s now in administration amid efforts to rescue the business and save 11,000 jobs.
Chappell, whose Retail Acquisitions acquired BHS for £1 last year from billionaire Philip Green, is working with a group of potential purchasers and is likely to submit an offer next week, he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
"Talks with the other bidders are reasonably advanced," Chappell said, referring to his prospective investment partners. "We plan to buy the company in its entirety."
BHS appointed administrators to protect against insolvency this week after failed negotiations to find a buyer and a lack of success in selling property to ease financial strains on the business. Should the chain collapse, it would be the biggest UK retail failure since Woolworths Group Plc in 2008. Administration is similar to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US.
A BHS representative declined to comment.
Chappell said he would make a "significant payment" into BHS’s pension fund. Court records revealed that BHS’s pension deficit had grown to £571 million ($832 million) last month. When Green bought the business for £200 million in 2000, the plan was fully funded. The billionaire faces a parliamentary interrogation over his part in allowing the pension deficit to swell.
British sporting-goods retailer Sports Direct International Plc immediately bought back its USC fashion chain in January 2015, after placing it into administration with Duff & Phelps, which is also handling BHS.
Racing Driver
Chappell, a former racing driver who had no prior retail industry experience before taking over BHS, said he’s confident that his proposed bid would give him the capital needed to operate the business as a going concern.
"The business is turnable,” he said. “We believe it has a rightful place on the high street. It has a core, loyal customer base, but it was killed by decades of under-investment. We believe that in our tenure over the last year we did a lot to correct that and we were beginning to see the results."
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