All 50 PowerHouse stores will be closed, with 500 of the retailer's 650 employees made redundant, according to the administrator, BDO Stoy Hayward.
The decision to put the company into administration and appoint BDO Stoy Hayward was taken at a board meeting yesterday.
'We have done everything we can to turn PowerHouse around since the acquisition in September 2003, and management and staff are to be commended for their extraordinary efforts and achievements over this time, but we have simply exhausted all our options,' said PRG Group chairman Jock Irvine.
Irvine said reversing decline at PowerHouse had proved harder than expected. With less than 1 per cent of the market, the third-largest electricals retailer has struggled to compete over the past three years in the face of excessive price deflation in technology products.
PowerHouse has also struggled as the two biggest electricals retailers expanded to superstore destination sites, supermarkets signed up big-name electricals brands and competition increased from online retailers, explained Irvine.
Retail union Usdaw pledged to support its Powerhouse members after employees were given the news and handed details of their redundancy this morning.
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