The UK’s largest weekly payment household goods retailer BrightHouse has announced that it will close 30 stores resulting in 350 redundancies.
The company, which has around 3,000 employees, will close around 10% of its estate amid struggling high street conditions and restrictions on rent-to-own retailers.
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A BrightHouse spokesperson said: “We have taken the very difficult decision to close 30 stores in the next two months. All employees affected by our proposals have been informed. We are working to redeploy as many people as possible into alternative roles, but redundancies will be inevitable.
“We will be speaking to all customers affected by the store closures and either transferring them to another local store or serving them online. We’re also introducing PayPoint, allowing customers to pay BrightHouse in cash at 28,000 locations across the UK.”
The stores set to close are: Aylesbury, Basingstoke, Bognor Regis, Bromley, Cowley, Dunstable, Eccles, Gravesend, Haverfordwest, High Wycombe, Leeds Merrion, Macclesfield, Maidstone, Newark, Newport (IOW), Nuneaton, Perth, Rugby, Scarborough, Seaham, Selby, Southport, Stafford, Stirling, Thetford, Trowbridge, Watford, Weymouth, Whitehaven and Yeovil.
BrightHouse closures: Rent-to-own restrictions
BrightHouse’s most recent results for the six months to 29 September showed an increase in pre-tax losses at £22.1m from £19.9m year-on-year.
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By GlobalDataThe news follows restrictions set on rent-to-own retailers after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) last year announced plans to cap the amount of interest that rent-to-own retailers charge customers.
The FCA found that 40,000 consumers were paying an additional £23m a year on electrical goods due to excessive interest rates and overpricing.
