Comet’s last remaining stores will trade for the final time today as the high street spending slump finally claims another high-profile casualty.
The collapse is set to cost the taxpayer almost £50m.
Closure of the final group of 49 stores from the former 235-strong estate comes seven weeks after Deloitte was appointed administrator.
The collapse of the firm, which was founded as a radio and battery shop in Hull in 1933 and employed around 6,895 people before it sank into administration, is one of the biggest high street failures since the demise of Woolworths in 2008.
Shops in Dundee, Perth and Kirkcaldy closed with a fire sale late last month, and the Dunfermline branch closed last week.
Deloitte has so far failed to find a buyer for the company or any of its shops and, in a report published last night, said it remained in talks with a small number of parties over the sale of internet operations and the brand.
With insufficient funds raised from winding down the chain, it falls to the Government’s Redundancy Payments Service to meet £23.2 million outstanding redundancy pay, accrued holiday pay and pay in lieu of notice for staff.
It has also been reported that HM Revenue & Customs are amongst the firm’s unsecured creditors, owed £26.1m, and will receive nothing.
The administrator’s report also highlighted the scale of the problems at Comet, with the chain racking up losses of £95m in the year to April, having seen revenues slump by £200m on a year earlier.
This was followed by a further £31m loss in the subsequent five months as credit insurers lost confidence and withdrew support for the business.
By the time administrators stepped in last month, total liabilities had reached as much as £351m.
The firm was hit by weak high street trading conditions, competition from online and supermarkets, and was subsequently unable to secure specialist trade credit insurance needed to safeguard suppliers.
It was also significantly hit by a dearth of first-time home-buyers, who were key customers for Comet as they sought to fit out their new homes with white and electrical goods.
The chain was part of the Kingfisher retail group before being demerged to become part of Kesa Electricals alongside sister electrical companies from across Europe in 2003.
It last made a profit in 2008, and returns have worsened ever since.
Kesa now known as Darty after its primary French brand sold the business to an investment vehicle for £1 in February, paying a £50m dowry and retaining the liability for Comet’s pension scheme.
The investment company put together by Henry Jackson of OpCapita, who raised funding from unnamed investors, is now expected to get payments of just under £50m as a secured creditor. This is a shortfall of £95m on the amount owed.
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