DEPARTMENT store chain Debenhams has confirmed it intends to bring in administrators as its stores are shut during the coronavirus lockdown.
For the second time in a year, the stricken retailer hopes to shield itself from creditors seizing its assets.
Starting the administration process gives Debenhams ten days to arrange a rescue deal.
With 22,000 staff nationwide, Debenhams has stores in Coventry, Leamington, Stratford and Rugby.
Legal action by suppliers “could have the effect of pushing the business into liquidation while its 142 UK stores remain closed”, Debenhams stated.
Hopes remain among its bosses that creditors could save the company for the second time in months.
They said: “The group is making preparations to resume trading its stores once government restrictions are lifted.”
The group added its online retail in the UK and Europe continues as normal.
Commenting, Alan Lockey, head of the Royal Society of Arts Future Work Centre, said: “Debenham’s going into administration highlights an underlying weakness in our economy. The furloughing of thousands of workers doesn’t appear to have made the business more resilient to this crisis, and those workers now face a period of profound uncertainty about whether they’ll be coming back to a job when this is all over.
“In the longer term, this crisis will accelerate the changes we’ve been seeing in retail over the last two decades – the displacement of ‘traditional’ retail work as shopping moves online and automation accelerates. Debenham’s is just the tip of the iceberg: other major retailers will likely follow, and some of the jobs lost during the pandemic may never return.”
