Is Poundland a declining business, racking up losses and teetering on the brink of insolvency as higher wage costs and squeezed household budgets eat into an uncompetitive retailer’s margins? Or are asset-stripping corporate raiders trying to force a booming business into administration after loading it with debt, putting more than 10,000 people out of work just before Christmas, so they can flog the last of the stock while leaving suppliers with the bill?
Both those stories were suggested when Fraser Nelson interviewed Reform UK’s shadow Treasury secretary Robert Jenrick on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With… yesterday. Nelson said Poundland’s sales are down 12 per cent while Jenrick said they were up by 6.7 per cent recently and over 8 per cent in the first three weeks of October.
Both figures are (or may be) right, because they’re talking about different periods. Nelson was quoting audited figures from the firm’s latest annual report, for the year to 28 September 2025. Over that year, revenues fell from £1.76 billion to £1.55 billion and the company made a £1 million-a-week operating loss.
Jenrick was quoting more recent trading figures. In September, the firm said that its sales had risen 6.4 per cent in its fourth quarter, or 3.3 per cent unadjusted. Suppliers were later told that sales grew 6.7 per cent in September and like-for-like sales 8.4 per cent in the three weeks to 18 October, representing ‘a return to viability and profitability’. The Telegraph reports that ministers have been told the firm expects to make a £15 million profit this year. The like-for-like figures will exclude sales in worse-performing stores that have closed over the last year (around 100 have closed, leaving around 600), and are being compared to a ‘difficult period’ last year, as a source told the Sunday Times.
Jenrick said ‘the stats are all out there in the public domain’ – but while they’ve been reported, his are internal figures from the management to suppliers. The former is trying to persuade the latter to deliver goods to a firm that might not pay for them. The numbers are not audited. In Poundland’s message to suppliers, which accompanied the figures, the firm’s board even says ‘we trust you will be reassured by our continuing improving trajectory and strong track record to pay suppliers, in full and on time,’ according to the Mirror. This doesn’t mean the figures are wrong, but they’re ones the management is trying to use to persuade suppliers to keep its shelves stocked.
Gordon Brothers, which bought Poundland for £1 in June last year, is trying to sell the firm and demanding from the buyer full repayment of a £30 million loan it inherited. With no deal agreed, the board has filed notice of its intention to appoint administrators, and Gordon Brothers reportedly believes that it is more likely to get its money back if the chain is broken up and sold in pieces. Jenrick wants the government to ask ‘searching questions’ about the firm, and ‘Minister for the Future of Work’ Kate Dearden has requested a meeting with Poundland’s chief executive.
So is Poundland a basket case or a bargain? It’s had a dreadful couple of years, but now things seem to be moving in the right direction. Whatever’s really happening, leaning on a lender to give up money it’s owed is something the government should think twice about. The next investor who might step in to rescue a struggling retailer could be watching.
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