The fight to buy up Woolworths’ destitute stores continues, with Sainsbury’s rumoured to have become front-runners to purchase more than 100 shops, according to some media reports over the weekend.
Other fresh produce retailers believed to be interested in buying up some of the 815 Woolworths stores include Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons and Asda.
The company, which currently employs 25,000 people, went into administration last week.
Support and head office staff were made redundant on Friday with 450 jobs lost at Woolworths' offices in Central London and Rochdale. However, none of the cuts will be made at its stores or from Entertainment UK, its DVD and CD distribution business, according to accountants Deloitte.
Discount stores have also shown interest. Poundland is said to be interested in buying some stores and Iceland is thought to want approximately 50.
Lidl PR and marketing manager Marco Ivone said: "We are looking at some stores on an individual basis."
Neville Kahn, the joint administrator at Deloitte, told The Times: “Our expectation remains that stores will remain open beyond Christmas and that all staff in the stores will be paid in full.”
Deloitte said when it was appointed that there would be no redundancies at Woolworths' high street stores until after Christmas Day - however, this did not apply to administrative staff at its head office.
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