o hope for Jessops: Administrators to close ALL of failed camera chain's stores with the loss of 2,000 jobs

Administrators announced that all 187 stores across the UK will close for good at end of trading todayShop staff will lose jobs, with more redundancies in head office likelyShoppers no longer able to return productsCamera retailer has become first major High Street casualty of 2013.
Jessops has closed all its stores with immediate effect, triggering the loss of up to 2,000 jobs.The high street camera chain, which has 187 stores, is the first of what is expected to be many retail casualties in 2013.The shops will not re-open and about 1,370 store staff will lose their jobs immediately. The rest, who work at Jessops’ Leicester headquarters, are likely to follow soon afterwards.
Customers who bought products in the run-up to Christmas will be unable to get repairs or refunds on faulty goods and gift tokens will not be honoured.It appears that poor festive trading was the final nail in the coffin for a Britain’s only specialist nationwide camera retailer, a fixture on High Streets for almost 80 years.

Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) were appointed earlier this week after it became clear Jessops had effectively run out of cash.Yesterday, they admitted the chain, which can trace its roots to 1935, has no future and so the shops would close with immediate effect.PwC's Rob Hunt said: 'Since my appointment, we have reviewed the position of the business and held extensive discussions with suppliers around their support for ongoing trading.Closed: Every branch of Jessops, including this one in Bath, will shut for good at the end of trading today with customers unable to return goods'It is apparent that we cannot continue to trade and as a result we have had to make the difficult decision to begin the closure of all 187 Jessops stores at the close of business today.'Regrettably, this will result in around 1,370 job losses across the stores with further job losses likely, in due course, at the head office in Leicester.'The stock will be collected over the coming days and returned to a central warehouse.'It will be returned to suppliers if they are entitled to it.'As a consequence of the closure, Jessops is no longer able to accept returned product from customers.'This is an extremely sad day for Jessops and its employees.'We are very grateful for the support we have received since our appointment and we will continue to ensure that employees are paid as they assist us during the closure.'Jessops had 192 high street stores, although five of them were closed after Christmas, before the appointment of the administrators.

Branches in Torquay, Tamworth, Weston super Mare, Hereford and Walsall were all shut with the loss of a total of 23 jobs. Administrator PwC had already said that Jessops would not in a position to honour any gift vouchers purchased, and it would also not accept returned goods.PwC said the company’s core market had seen a ‘significant decline’ in 2012 and its position had ‘deteriorated’ in the run-up to Christmas, as a result of reducing confidence in UK retail.Forecasts for 2013 had indicated the decline would continue, PwC added. It said extra funding was made available to the company, but Jessops did not generate the profits it had planned over Christmas.Mr Hunt said discussions to raise additional financial support had been held between the directors, lenders and suppliers over the past few days. But the directors had appointed administrators in light of ‘irreconcilable differences’.