Former Wilko chair Lisa Wilkinson told MPs on Tuesday that the high-street chain’s ultimate owner did not have enough assets “to fill a £50mn pension hole” as she apologised for its collapse (The Financial Times £).
The former chairwoman of Wilko has told MPs that the retailer’s parent company has insufficient funds to plug a £50 million pension hole and said Liz Truss’s mini-budget was partly to blame for it going out of business (The Times £).
The former boss of Wilko has tearfully told MPs she was devastated by the collapse of the budget retailer as she claimed the family’s multimillion-pound fortune was not enough to rescue it (The Guardian).
MPs said dividend payments to shareholders even when the High Street chain was struggling amounted to ‘the burgling of a failing business’ (The Mail).
The Guardian’s business editorial says that ‘morally, the Wilko family should look at themselves in the mirror’. “Why should a holding company be able to insulate itself when employees’ pensions are being hit?,” the paper asks.
A former worker has described the impact of Wilko’s demise, calling the run-up to the collapse “horrendous” (The Guardian).
Read the full story of the bruising grilling by MPs over the collapse of the 93-year-old retailer here in The Grocer.
Hungry DIY-ers will now be able to order a side of nails with their lunchtime burger as Deliveroo pushes deeper into instant delivery of non-food products (The Times £).
Office workers are swapping sushi for sandwiches as the soaring cost of fish makes it less accessible for many consumers, according to Greencore, a supplier of supermarket lunch meal deals (The Telegraph £).
Adverts for the vaping company Elf Bar have been banned after using the slogan “recycling for a greener future” over concern they were misleading because of the environmental damage of discarded vapes (The Guardian).
Pets at Home has maintained its annual guidance as it gears up for a strong Christmas trading period, despite having reported a sharp fall in profits in the first half of the year (The Times £).
Pets at Home Group’s profits tumbled by over a third during the first half as the costs of opening a new warehouse weighed on the retailer (The Mail).
The Questor share column in The Telegraph (£) tips Saisnbury’s and writes that the supermarket chain has yet to deliver on its full potential.
The Guardian runs a profile of the boss at food-sharing app Olio. Tessa Clarke told the paper: ‘The investment industry is just a wall of men’.
Daniel Křetínský has pushed Casino’s management to sell the retailer’s largest stores months before his planned bailout, said three people with knowledge of the discussions, an outcome its founder Jean-Charles Naouri had sought to avoid when striking the deal with the Czech billionaire (The Financial Times £).
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