{"id":4952,"date":"2026-04-16T11:31:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=4952"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:31:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:31:01","slug":"major-retailer-disappears-from-uk-high-street-after-closing-all-137-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=4952","title":{"rendered":"Major retailer disappears from UK high street after closing all 137 stores"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The business employed around 1,200 people.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

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A major retailer has disappeared from the UK high street after closing down all 137 stores.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After falling into administration four months ago, it is the latest of a number of large retailers and businesses to have been struggling in the UK in recent times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Poundland, River Island, Claire’s, and a number of travel agents have flirted with administration, been forced to restructure, or disappeared completely from the high street.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With discount chain store The Original Factory Shop (TOFS) entering administration at the start of the year, it has now completely disappeared from the high street.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As per The Mirror, the business has now closed all it’s shops as well as its head office.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The chain was bought by Modella Capital last year and was already on the brink of collapse when it was acquired by the group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Its owner Modella said in January that tough trading conditions and “an alarming drop-off in pre-Christmas footfall’ meant administration was “the only option”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The business employed around 1,200 people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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TOFS opened its first shop in the late 1960s and has around 130 stores nationwide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A spokesperson said: “A phased closure of the store portfolio was implemented considering the financial position.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Without any viable offers to take the business forward, it was not possible for The Original Factory Shop to continue trading and all remaining stores were closed on 4 April 2026.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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TOFS collapse comes after Claire’s, also owned by Modella, appointed administrators at the start of the year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Claire’s appointed Kroll as administrators to its UK and Irish operations, a move which could put around 1,300 jobs at risk.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The retailer’s financial issues are reported to have come from a “combination of government policy, landlords’ demands to take back many of TOFS’ better sites and a poorly handled transition to a new logistics provider”, as per Sky News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Modella also owns the high-street operations of well-known chain WH Smith’s, which have been rebranded to TG Jones, as well as Hobbycraft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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#Major #retailer #disappears #high #street #closing #stores<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The business employed around 1,200 people. A major retailer has disappeared from the UK high street after closing down all 137 stores. After falling into administration four months ago, it is the latest of a number of large retailers and businesses to have been struggling in the UK in recent times. Poundland, River Island, Claire’s, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[450,3443,5129,473,2578,1588,923,2579,2384,2580,1631,517,2581],"class_list":{"0":"post-4952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-closing","10":"tag-disappears","11":"tag-high","12":"tag-high-street","13":"tag-major","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-retail","16":"tag-retailer","17":"tag-shops","18":"tag-stores","19":"tag-street","20":"tag-the-original-factory-shop"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}