MPs grill former Wilko boss on whether family’s ‘greed’ triggered collapse of much-loved chain – after their £9m dividend bonanza – as founder’s granddaughter says she is ‘devastated’

The former boss of collapsed retailer Wilko today denied her greed bankrupted the much-loved chain.

Lisa Wilkinson, the granddaughter of the firm’s founder, said she was ‘devastated’ by the demise of the business as she was quizzed by a House of Commons committee.

She offered an apology to the 12,000 people who lost their jobs as part of the collapse of the 93-year-old chain, which also left a £50million shortfall in its pension fund.

‘I don’t know how to put into words how sad I am that we have let down all our team members, all our customers, our suppliers, and our advisers,’ Ms Wilkinson told MPs.

Her grilling by the Commons’ Business and Trade Committee followed severe criticism of Wilko bosses for shelling out £77million to its owners and former shareholders in the decade before its collapse.

The Wilkinson family are reported to have received £9m in dividends since 2019.

Lisa Wilkinson , the granddaughter of Wilko’s founder, said she was ‘devastated’ by the demise of the business as she was quizzed by a House of Commons committee

Around 12,000 people lost their jobs as part of the collapse of the 93-year-old chain, which also left a £50million shortfall in its pension fund

The Wilkinson family are reported to have received £9m in dividends from the business since 2019

Asked directly by committee chair Liam Byrne, the Labour ex-Cabinet minister, whether her greed bankrupted Wilko, Ms Wilkinson replied: ‘I don’t believe so, no.’

She told MPs: ‘I am devastated that we have let each and every one of those people down with the insolvency of Wilko.

‘I don’t know how to put into words how sad I am that we have let down all our team members, all our customers, our suppliers, and our advisers.’

Pushed by Mr Byrne to apologise directly with the word ‘sorry’, Ms Wilkinson added: ‘You can have the word sorry, of course I’m sorry, if you wish me to say the word sorry.

‘I thought devastated covered it. I apologise, I wasn’t trying to be clever. I am sorry that we are not there supporting all those people any more.’

She partly blamed the ‘mini-Budget’ of ex-prime minister Liz Truss in September last year, which was accompanied by financial markets meltdown, for Wilko’s collapse.

Ms Wilkinson said the company was in the middle of negotiating a new loan arrangement when interest rates began to soar.

‘We were about to enter into secured lending arrangements with Macquarie when the 2022 mini-Budget happened,’ she said.

‘Literally we were in the midst of that, and at that point the interest terms on that loan were hiked massively and that became infeasible. So, that was a contributor.’

Mark Jackson, the former chief executive of Wilko, told MPs there was a window of opportunity to save the business, but it could not get the funding it needed.

He said the company’s balance sheet was relatively ‘well placed’ up until 2022, when its finances deteriorated and it began to run out of cash.

‘There was definitely a window where a turnaround could have been done,’ he told the committee.

First launched as Wilkinson’s, the family-run business started as a single hardware store at 151 Charnwood Street (pictured) in Leicester in 1930

JK Wilkinson (pictured) opened the first shop with his fiance Mary Cooper. The pair were married at 8am on October 22, 1934 – and were reportedly back at the shop by 11am

The Range bought the Wilko brand for £5m in September. Five stores are due to open before Christmas, with the first three in Plymouth, Exeter and Luton

Asked why the opportunity was not seized, he said: ‘Because we couldn’t get the funders to back it. It was pursued; I knocked down an awful lot of doors more than once.

‘We had interested parties right up to the beginning of August who were really keen to save the business and, I thought, still a very good chance of doing so.

‘Ultimately, the amount of security in the balance sheet was falling every day… the amount secured lenders were prepared to lend was reducing.’

Wilko, a discount hardware and furnishings chain, had 400 stores across the UK when it fell into administration in August.

There has since been a sell-off of Wilko’s assets, including the sale of up to 71 stores to Poundland and up to 51 shops to rival discounter B&M.

But both deals did not automatically include staff, with nearly 10,000 former Wilko workers having been paid more than £42million by the Government’s Insolvency Service.

This has covered redundancy pay and statutory notice pay owed to employees.

Wilko paid all its former employees any wages they were owed, as well as holiday pay, overtime or commission that was due at the time it went into administration.

Earlier this morning, MPs had heard evidence from the GMB union that Wilko had told it of a ‘challenging trading position’ as early as 2010.

‘We’ve got correspondence between ourselves and Wilko where they identify a challenging trading position from about 2010,’ said GMB national officer Nadine Houghton.

‘They identify that the discount retailers are an issue.’

She said that, rather than leaning into that, the company tried to change its business model.

‘What you see is a move away from this idea of Wilko as a discount retailer,’ Ms Houghton said.

She added: ‘The internal messaging to our members … was very much this attempt to move very much to almost a John Lewis-type model.’

The Range bought the Wilko brand for £5m in September, which will prevent Wilko shops disappearing from Britain’s high streets.

Five stores are due to open before Christmas, with the first three in Plymouth, Exeter and Luton.

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