TGJones chief executive Alex Willson has said his fist impression was “the huge scale of under-investment over many years”, in an interview with the Financial Times.
Willson, who joined TGJones from Hobbycraft earlier this year, said that the business feels “almost completely broken”, adding that stores had “missing lightbulbs, threadbare carpets with holes in, you’ve got missing ceiling tiles, you’ve got lifts and escalators that don’t work”.
He also pointed to stores that were run by single members of staff, which need to close if they need to use the toilet.
WHSmith declined to comment for the article, but the FT reported that a person close to the company had access to all relevant information before doing a deal.
TGJones owner Modella, which bought the business from WHSmith last year, recently told creditors that if they fail to back its restructuring plan, the high street business could collapse into insolvency by the end of July.
The plan was widely reported to involve the shuttering of up to 150 branches, around a quarter of its store estate, and hundreds of job losses.
Willson said that if the restructuring plan is improved then TGJones planned to bring in new product categories including photo frames, DIY and craft items, as well as scale models.
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