Friday, January 11, 2013

All 187 store locations of Jessops camera retailer are closing in the United Kingdom today. The business, which went into administration earlier this week, is to leave its workforce of approximately 1370 jobless. While staff at the business’ top office in Leicester, in central England, are not being made redundant with immediate effect, they are in the next few weeks to lose their positions.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the firm declared administrator of Jessops two days ago, has said an examination of the company indicated it was no longer capable of operating successfully. “It is apparent that we cannot continue to trade”, said joint administrator Rob Hunt of PwC, “and as a result we have had to make the difficult decision”.

PwC say no Jessops branches will open tomorrow and people who have bought items from their businesses will not be able to return them. However, stock “will be returned to suppliers if they are entitled to it”, according to Hunt.

Hunt said PwC “will continue to ensure that employees are paid as they assist us during the closure” at Jessops. In a comment to the BBC, Hunt described the situation at Jessops as “a horrible end to a very intensive couple of days”.