• Interested parties thought to include Sports Direct and B&M Bargains
  • Bidders are for whole or part of business
  • Dominic Chappell has said he has put in a bid

The administrators of BHS have received “multiple” bids for the department store chain on the day of the deadline for indicative offers.

Details of interested parties have not been disclosed, but are thought to comprise some interested in the whole of the business and some only in parts.

Retailers that have shown an interest in BHS include B&M, Sports Direct and Ikea.

Tycoon Mike Ashley, who controls Sports Direct, has indicated he would keep all stores open and not make any redundancies. Value powerhouse B&M and Ikea are thought to be interested in parcels of stores.

Edinburgh Woollen Mill owner Philip Day is also thought to be eyeing stores.

Dominic Chappell of Retail Acquisitions, the company that owned BHS before it went into administration, this week told The Telegraph that it had bid for BHS ahead of today’s 5pm deadline. The three-times bankrupt Chappell declined to say whether he was bidding for the whole or part of the business.

A BHS spokesperson has previously said that Chappell’s claim he would take back the retailer was “fantasy”.

Indicative offers are non-binding agreements that demonstrate whether a party is interested in the whole or part of a business, past immediate expressions of interest.

BHS plunged into administration last month. The retailer’s travails – it is estimated to be laden with £3.2bn debt – have put 11,000 jobs at risk in addition to the problem of a £571m pension scheme black hole, which will affect both current and past employees.

The demise of BHS is being investigated by a variety of authorities, including parliament’s Work and Pensions and Business, Innovation and Skills Committees, and The Insolvency Service – the latter at the request of business secretary Sajid Javid.

 

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