Woolworths hangs in there as Sainsburys 'shows interest'

Woolworths in Rochdale

The fight to buy up Woolworths’ destitute stores continues, with Sainsbury’s rumoured to have become front-runners to purchase more than 100 of its stores nationwide.

Other fresh produce retailers believed to be interested in buying up some of the 815 Woolworths stores include Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons and Asda.

The company, which currently employs over 450 people in Rochdale, fell into administration last week.

Over 70 people from the Castleton depot have just been laid off.

Discount stores have also shown interest. Poundland is said to be interested in buying some stores and Iceland is thought to want approximately 50.

Neville Kahn, the joint administrator at Deloitte, told The Times: “Our expectation remains that stores will remain open beyond Christmas and that all staff in the stores will be paid in full.”

Deloitte said when it was appointed that there would be no redundancies at Woolworths' high street stores until after Christmas Day – however, this did not apply to administrative staff at its head office.