Member Article

Wine Cellar goes into administration

A Northern off licence company went into administration this week with the loss of 320 jobs.

Wine Cellar Limited operates 170 off licence and convenience stores, predominantly in the North East and North West, under the brand names Booze Buster, Simply Drinks and Simply Food & Drinks.

Bill Dawson and Daniel Butters of Deloitte were appointed Joint Administrators of Wine Cellar Limited on Wednesday 30 September.

The administrators have today announced the sale of the stock and the majority of the retail outlets to EFB Retail.

Bill Dawson, partner in the Reorganisation Services practice at Deloitte, said: “We are pleased to announce the sale of the majority of the Wine Cellar outlets. The sale includes 109 stores, which will secure around 640 jobs at these outlets and around 60 staff from head office.

“The Administrators are not in a position to continue trading the remaining 61 stores which have not been sold. These stores have been closed and unfortunately around 320 employees have been made redundant. We will be working closely with the Redundancy Payments Office to provide support for these staff.

“The company has undertaken an extensive search to find an investor or buyer. It has become necessary to sell the business via an administration, due to its financial position.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .