381 local off-licences operated by Threshers Group will be closed it has been announced. Threshers is owned by First Quench which went into administration on the 29th October this year because of the combination of reduced sales through the credit crunch, but primarily the affect of supermarket giants like ASDA, TESCO and Sainsburys pricing them out of the market. First Quench is also the parent company of other brands such as the Local and Bottoms Up meaning that 1,908 employees across the brands stores and 34 at the group head office will be made redundant.
Richard Fleming is the UK head of restructuring at KPMG, who have been appointed as administrators. Earlier today he said that he was in “advanced talks regarding the sale of the business with a number of interested parties”.
However, he added: “Unfortunately there has not been sufficient interest in these 381 stores as part of the going concern sale, so we have no option but to close them. However, we have had an enormous amount of interest in these sites from over 700 small local businesses and private individuals.
“Christie & Co is assisting us in assigning the leases of the remaining stores to interested buyers.”
A Bleak Christmas for Employees
Whilst it makes sense in the big picture, the staff are not likely to be happy to find out that the stores are planned to be closed by 16th December, though this does depend on stock levels at an individual store level. Stock liquidation sales are expected to start as soon as November 24th, just 1 months before Christmas.
To make matters worse, First Quench is not the only off-license chain to fail during the recession. Wine Cellar went into administration only last month meaning that 61 of its 170 shops were closed and the rest sold to a new owner. The trend goes back further to 2005 when threshers bought out 200 shops from the Unwins chain following it going into administration. This makes it unlikely that the staff can find similar roles at other off-licenses, which won’t help them with their debt problems.
Following in the footsteps of Woolies
Drinks companies struggled with the idea of supplying off-licenses prior to invoices being paid for insurance reasons… so what’s changed? Trade Credit Insurance used to be the main mechanism through which chained off-licenses purchased drinks without settling invoices in advance, however, this was withdrawn following it being sited a major contributing factor to the collapse of Woolworths.
The first Threshers shop was opened by Samuel Thresher in 1897. It was bought by Flowers Breweries in the 1950s and became part of Whitbread, the current owner of Premier Inn and Costa Coffee, in 1962.
It was merged in 1998 with Victoria Wine, owned by Allied Domecq, before being bought by Nomura Principal Finance in 2003. First Quench has been owned by American private equity company Vision Capital since 2007.
