More than 1,200 jobs are set to be saved at Robert Dyas after an 11th-hour deal between the high street hardware store chain and its banks, including the government-backed Lloyds Banking Group, to avert administration.
Change Capital Partners, the private equity firm which owns Robert Dyas and which is likely to see its investment wiped out as part of any restructuring, is locked in discussions with Lloyds and Allied Irish Bank, the chain’s principal lenders, about a new financing deal.
People close to the talks said last night that unless a deal could be reached imminently, Robert Dyas’s owners would have no choice but to place the company into administration, jeopardising up to 1,200 jobs.
Last night, it emerged that Change Capital Partners, which is run by Luc Vandevelde, the former Marks & Spencer chairman, and Lloyds had been engaged in a bitter stand-off over the future of Robert Dyas, which operates from more than 100 stores across southern England.
Sunday Telegraph, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph
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