Maplin is seeking to reassure suppliers about its financial health after credit insurers cut coverage of the electricals retailer.
Trade insurer QBE axed Maplin’s cover last month, The Sunday Telegraph reported, while counterparts Euler Hermes and Atradius are also understood to have reduced their exposure.
The scaling back of coverage is understood to reflect concerns about falling profits and worries about the retail industry more widely.
The reduction of cover may make it more difficult for some suppliers to continue supplying Maplin, which has 211 stores and employs around 2,600 people.
Maplin’s owner, Rutland Partners, is expected to meet credit insurers later this week to update them about performance in the hopes of providing reassurance.
A source close to Rutland told the newspaper that another credit insurer had recently doubled its exposure to Maplin, that Maplin had credit insurance available and that it was trading within its banking facilities.
The source denied that the owner would have to inject cash cash into Maplin in order to keep it trading through the Christmas period.
Rutland bought Maplin for £85m in 2014.
The most recent results for Maplin’s parent company MEL Topco showed that the business made a loss of more than £11.7m in the year to March 19, 2016, versus a loss of £6.2m the previous year.
Turnover dipped to £234.5m from £236.2m.
Trading in the current year is expected to have been challenging.
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