UK discount retailer B&M to buy 51 stores of collapsed Wilko

(Reuters) -British discount retailer B&M said on Tuesday it will buy 51 stores of collapsed Wilko for up to 13 million pounds ($16.29 million), a month after the homeware and household goods discount retailer went into administration.

Wilko was taken under the management of administrator PwC in August after a buyer could not be found for the cash-strapped company, putting its 400 stores and 12,500 jobs in danger.

On Tuesday, PwC said in a statement it plans to cut more than 1,300 jobs at the chain. There would also be 299 redundancies at two distribution centres and 52 store closures, resulting in 1,016 job cuts, it added.

Last month, Sky News reported that Canadian businessman Doug Putman was finalising a deal to buy a majority of Wilko from its administrators.

Wilko, which sells everything from hardware goods to cleaning products, toys and gardening equipment, has an annual turnover of 1.2 billion pounds.

It started in 1930 as a single hardware store in Leicester, central England, but fell victim to Britain's tougher economic environment and cost of living crisis, grappling with high inflation and 14 consecutive interest rate rises since December 2021.

($1 = 0.7979 pounds)

(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar and Amna Karimi in Bengaluru; editing by Eileen Soreng and Devika Syamnath)