{"id":787468,"date":"2026-09-30T13:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787468\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T13:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:38:11","slug":"poundland-management-in-talks-to-lead-bid-that-could-save-11000-jobs-poundland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787468\/","title":{"rendered":"Poundland management in talks to lead bid that could save 11,000 jobs | Poundland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poundland\u2019s management team are in \u201cadvanced talks\u201d to lead a bid for the ailing cut-price retailer that could save up to 11,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

The former Asda boss Andy Bond, who ran Poundland for a number of years from 2016 then stepped up to its former parent Pepco before leaving in 2025, is understood to be part of the negotiations to take on the business.<\/p>\n

The management buyout team, which includes the current boss, Barry Williams, is understood to be negotiating with an unnamed financial backer.<\/p>\n

Poundland\u2019s current owners, Gordon Brothers, last month hired the advisory company Alvarez & Marsal to oversee a sale of the business at a reported price of \u00a330m. The process has fuelled fears that the restructuring specialist is set on breaking up the retailer despite improved trading.<\/p>\n

Interested parties are thought to include the US company Fortress, which owns Poundstretcher, and Modella Capital, the UK-based private equity owner of Hobbycraft and TG Jones that this year put the UK arm of Claire\u2019s and The Original Factory Shop into administration<\/a>. Neither of these players are involved with Bond\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

Sources said these financial companies were among those placing a first round of bids at the start of this week that are to be considered as early as Wednesday.<\/p>\n

One source said very few bids were expected to include the entire business and it was a \u201cgreat shame\u201d if an offer to keep the business trading was not considered.<\/p>\n

The discount chain, which employs 11,000 people and has 600 stores, said last week that it had returned to growth of 3.3% at established stores in the latest three-month period. \u201cProfitability is on a strongly improving trajectory with expected pre-tax earnings around \u00a380m better than last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company registered an \u00a385m pre-tax loss in the year to the end of September 2025 but said it had a cash pile of more than \u00a330m and several sources of borrowings.<\/p>\n

Gordon Brothers had put in place a \u00a395m lending facility, of which only \u00a350m had been used, Poundland said.<\/p>\n

The restructuring specialist, which bought Poundland from for \u00a31 from Pepco Group<\/a> in June 2025, agreed to pump \u00a380m into the company as part of a rescue deal last year.<\/p>\n

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About 149 Poundland stores shut with the loss of 2,200 jobs under the rescue shake-up launched after challenging trading conditions and unpopular clothing ranges sent the retailer into the red.<\/p>\n

It has since refocused on \u00a31 items and relaunched its Pep & Co clothing brand after a switch to ranges supplied by its former parent group hit sales<\/p>\n

However, the uncertainty about Poundland\u2019s future has reportedly prompted an insurer to some of Poundland\u2019s suppliers to pull credit. The move could cause problems with its supply of goods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poundland\u2019s management team are in \u201cadvanced talks\u201d to lead a bid for the ailing cut-price retailer that could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-787468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}