The Original Factory Shop has made a third of its total head office staff redundant less than a week after it collapsed into administration, Retail Week can reveal.
The retailer has made 24 of its 71 staff at its Bolton head offices redundant, in the first wave of job layoffs to hit the stricken business since it appointed Interpath as administrators last week (January 28).
TOFS currently operates 137 stores across the UK and employs some 1,180 staff, and its stores have continued to trade over the last week and will do so until it has sold all its inventory of stock.
A source close to the business said that while TOFS stores are still open, morale on the shop floor is “absolutely on its knees”.
“I know for a fact that all the area managers are looking for new roles,” they said. “They can’t wait to leave the business”.
The news comes just a week after TOFS chair Milton Guffogg told staff that he’d been left with “no choice but to put the business into administration” after eleventh-hour rescue talks for the brand collapsed.
Modella Capital had originally approached The Range owner CDS Superstores about taking on the business, but Retail Week also understands the private equity firm approached Mike Ashley with an offer, although no deal could be agreed.
Guffogg told staff last week: “As you know, we have been going through a sales process, and that’s why we extended the notice of intent [to appoint administrators].
“A number of parties were interested, and we gave them a bit more time. For different reasons, those parties have fallen away or have made the time limit on it.”
He went on to say that: “By putting it into admin, it doesn’t mean that parties will not pick the business up out of administration, but it doesn’t give any guarantees that they’ll do that. I was really left with no choice.”
Modella acquired the discount chain and 180 of its stores in February 2025. It drafted in advisers at Interpath shortly after to explore options for the business, including a company voluntary arrangement.
Modella said at the start of the year that the company did not have a “realistic possibility of trading profitability again”, despite its “last-ditch attempt to rescue” it.
It was the second time in a week that a high street retailer had collapsed into administration, after another Modella Capital-owned brand, Claire’s, filed for insolvency on Monday (January 26).
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