Past Times Calls in KPMG Administrators

Howard Smith, Mark Firmin and Joff Pope of KPMG’s Restructuring practice were appointed joint administrators to gift retailer Past Times on 16 January 2012.

The loss making high street business is a casualty of difficult trading conditions for the retail sector, which has seen discretionary spend fall as consumer confidence declined during the last year, according to KPMG.

Past Times recently closed 46 stores before appointing the administrators, resulting in 507 redundancies, as well as completing the planned closures of 72 “pop up” temporary stores.

The remaining business, comprising 51 stores and 500 employees is continuing to trade under the control of the administrators in the short term. There will be an orderly wind down in the event a going concern sale cannot be concluded.

While the business continues to trade as a going concern employee numbers are being reduced with 67 redundancies made on appointment, comprising 30 fr om the Past Times head office in Witney, Oxfordshire and 37 from its warehouse, leaving a central workforce of 31.

The remaining stores will enter closing down mode on a nationwide basis wh ere consumers will find significantly discounted stock.