Morrisons to close 132 McColl's stores with 1,300 jobs at risk

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Retail giant Morrisons has announced it will shut down 132 McColl's stores. The supermarket took over the small convenience store chain earlier this year, saving McColl's from collapse.

Since then, 286 stores UK-wide have been transformed into Morrisons Daily shops.But according to Morrisons, some McColl's stores have been "loss-making for quite some time" and that there is "no realistic prospect" of breaking even in the medium term.

132 stores could be closed down before the end of the year, putting 1,300 jobs at risk.55 of these 132 stores include a Post Office.

Because these are heavily relied on by the public, especially in the run-up to Christmas, Morrisons has decided to delay the closure of these 55 until next year.McColl's was on the brink of collapse earlier this year, before Morrisons bought it over.Before the convenience chain entered administration, there were plans in place to convert a total of 450 McColl’s stores to the Morrisons Daily format of which 286 have already been converted.And after a detailed review of the McColl’s estate, Morrisons now plans to convert the majority of the McColl’s stores to Morrisons Dailys.In a statement, Morrisons said: "McColl’s is a business of significant scale, with an annual turnover of c. £1.2 billion, representing around 0.8% of the UK grocery market."However, a number of McColl’s stores have been loss-making for some time and although some of these stores will be able to return to profitability over time, there are 132 stores where there is no realistic prospect of achieving a breakeven position in the medium term.