Financially troubled ShopElectric and Electricworld shops will open today across Ulster to enable customers to reclaim goods.
Ray Jackson, a KPMG partner and joint administrator who closed the 35 shops on Friday, said it was “early days” to assess the full financial state of ShopElectric and Electricworld, but the situation was “pretty bad – the company is very insolvent”.
He said he has asked all the shop managers to reopen to the public today for several days to handle customer inquiries.
“They can hand back goods under warranty that were in for repair, and any goods for which title has passed to the customer.”
The shops were closed on Friday for three days to allow KPMG to make an assessment.
“We are arranging to meet all members of staff in the branches over the next week or so.”
Mr Jackson said the shops had been advertised for sale in the UK and the Republic, and had attracted a couple of tentative approaches.
“If they are going to sell, it would have to be quickly. There is reservation of title on a lot of the goods.”
(This means manufacturers own the goods until they are paid for, so they can take them back at any time.)
Amicus regional officer, Terry Collins, said the future was not bright for the shops.
“I don’t believe any of the shops will reopen in the short term,” he said.
Official letters went out yesterday to 250 staff left in limbo by the closure of the shops across Ulster explaining the plight of the shops.
The shops are owned by Northern Retail, a management buy-out group that acquired the company from Northern Electric, an electricity distributor in the north of England. They were once owned by NIE.
>From The Belfast Telegraph