Ritika Janiya
The leading carpet and flooring store Carpetright has been saved from going out of business by Tapi Carpets & Floors, yet there is also the bad news that many of Carpetright’s stores will close, and over 1,000 jobs are at risk.
What’s happening is this – Tapi Carpets & Floors is picking up the Carpetright name, some of its most valuable business assets, two big warehouses and 54 of its stores. The head of Tapi, Jeevan Karir, said: ‘Our original hope was that we could save at least a proportion of one of the last great British retailers, but it soon became apparent it wasn’t possible to save the whole company’.
He said that about 300 jobs would be saved through this deal, sadly, it won’t save Carpetright’s stores altogether. More than 200 stores will close across the UK, with the loss of many jobholders.
Just over a week ago, Carpetright was in deep water. They were close to appointing PwC–a troubled companies advisor firm–to administer and hopefully raise fresh funds. Mr. Karir said Carpetright had “hemorrhaged” money and had a lot of debt. Tapi Carpets & Floors went on record in a statement to press, saying, “We are extremely sad that we could not save more of Carpetright’s business.”. They did their best, but keeping the whole organization running was impossible.
Tapi Carpets & Floors would believe their offer was still the best means to save a lot of jobs and to allow Carpet right to grow in new locations all over the UK. Carpet right has about 1,800 people employed in 272 stores, so that is an awful lot of people to be impacted by these changes.
According to Kevin Barrett, who runs Nestware Holdings, the parent company of Carpetright, that shake-up plan was dealt a blow when the firm suffered a cyber-attack in April. It was the last thing they needed, though they were also aware that fewer people were out shopping. In the grip of cuts that many are trying to make to only buying essentials, a cost-of-living squeeze is making it harder to sell carpets and other costly items.
The business of Carpetright commenced in 1988 with the launch of its first store at Canning Town, East, London. The company did great for many years as its shares floated on the London Stock Exchange. Its journey on the stock exchange was taken off in the year 2020.
In summary, although Carpetright has escaped complete closure, many of its stores are still closing down, while thousands of jobs remain under threat. This is also a difficult situation for those people whom it affects while at the same time, what becomes of the remaining stores is yet to be known.
