Collapsed camera specialist retailer Jessops has been bought out of administration by entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones.

In a sudden takeover of the retailer last night, Jones came out as the winning bid for the brand despite restructuring specialist Hilco tipped to be the front-runner.

Rob Hunt, joint administrator and partner at PwC, last night said: “We can confirm that we have sold the brand and certain other assets to a number of buyers including entrepreneur Peter Jones.”

Jones, who made his fortune in mobile devices and is estimated to be worth £402m, will run the retailer as an online outfit. He has not bought any of the 187 Jessops stores, which were closed two days after the retailer went into administration.

When Hilco was in the running it was thought the company had plans to open branded Jessops concessions in HMV stores, after buying up the debt from the collapsed entertainment retailer.

Jessops collapsed on January 9. Its relevance in the retail market had deteriorated over the past few years due to the rise of people using cameras on their smartphones rather than buying separate digital camera devices.