Toys R Us and Maplin File for Administration

Another sad day for the UK high street and near town shopping centres, as two well known retailers, Maplins and Toys R Us, succumb to the challenges of maintaining branch networks in an increasingly  E-sales environment and file for administration. With approximately the same staffing levels, around 5,500 staff could be out of work, depending on how successful the administrators are in sorting the wheat from the chaff and selling it.

Maplins has some 200 stores and has been looking for a buyer for some time to stave of the inevitable, with Toys R Us maintaining half that number and opening more recently smaller leaner and more profitable branches, that may survive but a buyer for the UK Branch network  as a whole, has not been forthcoming. The parent company in the US is also suffering big time and has filed for bankruptcy protection late in 2017, having a great deal more hanging around its neck than the £15 million the UK company owes HMRC in tax.