Photo: Sky News
ICSM Business – Retail Insolvency News: Lloyds Pharmacy owes £293m to creditors as it goes bust - with hundreds more other chemists to close this year (and we list more retail casualties in 2024)
By Harry Mottram: despite Covid, the NHS pushing people to use pharmacies for a range of health conditions including inoculations and an aging population needing more medical help than ever, pharmacies have been closing around the country.
Now what’s left of Lloyds Pharmacy has gone into liquidation owing creditors an eye-watering £293 million pounds. James Stent writing for the trade publication Chemist and Druggist reported: “Some 514 companies and people are owed a total of £293 million by the now-defunct Lloyds Pharmacy, documents filed by its liquidators in Companies House last week (January 22) have revealed. Lloyds Pharmacy – now known on Companies House as Diamond DCO Two Limited - was the second largest multiple in the UK this time last year before the sale of all Lloydspharmacy high street branches was announced in November.”
Pic: Sky News
Ian Carrotte of ICSM - the business membership group dedicated to fighting bad debts and late payers with many members involved in the retail and healthcare sectors – said: “We understand that unsecured creditors will get nothing or next to nothing as there’s only £800,000 available for them according to the liquidators. There is they said only around £8m that can be realised for paying secured creditors such as lenders and the parent company while there is a long list of creditors. And the staff have been left high and dry – with many only hearing the news by e-mail apparently on Christmas Eve. The whole affair is totally unsatisfactory with the company that makes their signage left with £392,302 in unpaid invoices and several chemists such as J Hoots in our neck of the woods in Bridgwater left with the best part of a third of a million in unpaid bills.”
It is not however only a Lloyds Pharmacy problem as last year Boots shut 40 of its chemists and plan to close a further 200 this year. Sky News reported: “The bulk of closures so far has been driven by big companies like LloydsPharmacy and Boots. LloydsPharmacy has lost three quarters of its branches (1,087 out of 1,442) since 2017 and around two thirds (629 out of 984) in the past year.”
The reasons given by industry insiders are a mix of factors from rising operational costs, staff shortages and reduced government financial support. This is despite a rising patient demand as people age and more treatments and medicines become available and the Government has shifted more services out of GP practices and through the doors of chemists.
The Chemist and Druggist publication listed these firms as just some of the creditors:
Barrie Dear Sapphire Ltd - £480,356
Dears Stockbridge Ltd – £228,797
East Coast Healthcare Scotland Ltd - £321,544
Elton Properties Ltd - £116,928
Ettrick Health Ltd - £150,970
G J Maley Ltd - £1.4m
Jardines (U.K.) Ltd - £113,997
Jhoots Pharmacy Ltd - £322,144
L. Rowland & Company (Retail) Ltd - £6.2m
Makan Investments Ltd - £228,812
Microsoft Ltd - £269,626
Mutley Properties (Holdings) Limited - £125,535
Primary Health Investment Properties Ltd - £161,984
Savory & Moore (Jersey) Ltd - £495,041
Sign Specialists Ltd - £392,302
Ian Carrotte of ICSM said the retail sector – and in particular those in traditional High Street locations – had been under pressure due to online shopping, hikes in interest rates and energy costs as well as high business rates and a fall in footfall. He said it was harder to understand the failure of instore shops inside supermarkets as they had a high footfall as people went shopping. He said like many ills in the country the Government needed to take action as funding was clearly a problem for chemists who by and large are small businesses that cannot absorb rising costs in the way larger retailers can. His words were echoed by Dr Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies.
He told the BBC there was a shortfall of £1.1bn in funding for independent pharmacies every year. He said: "This has led to many pharmacies severely struggling with cashflow problems. On top of that, we've got the workforce challenges that we have been struggling with for so many years. We are urgently needing the government to step in and provide that funding,"
The Council for UK Retailing also listed these retailers who have hit the buffers this month: Tile Choice, a Midlands tile wholesaler/retailer with 18 retail stores; Box.co.uk, based in Sutton Coldfield; Wine Retail, the company that acquired 28 stores when Oddbins (the wine merchant/off-licence) went into administration in 2020, is reported to have been placed into administration itself; Keelham Farm Shop, Skipton, originally opened in 2015 as the second site under the Keelham brand, went into administation in January 2024; Market Village, Perry Barr. Market Village, a market within Perry Barr One Stop Shopping Centre (north Birmingham), has been put into administration and has closed, leaving thirty retailers (mostly sole traders) unable to reclaim their stock or to continue trading; Sook, the first administration of 2024, was a retail pop-up specialist in like London, Birmingham, Southampton, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds and Kent with one unit in Johannesburg.
More retailers who have gone bust recently include:
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ICSM, The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater, Somerset TA6 4RR. Tel: 0844 854 1850. www.icsmcredit.com. Ian.carrotte@icsmcredit.com
