- The discount chain went bust a year ago with the loss of over 12,000 jobs
Wilko’s founding family was this weekend branded ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’ after saying it had no plans to help plug the collapsed retailer’s £70 million pension hole.
The discount chain went bust a year ago with the loss of over 12,000 jobs and the closure of 400 stores. The Mail on Sunday revealed that Wilko’s owners – descendants of its founder, James Kemsey Wilkinson – had extracted £77 million in dividends over the previous decade.
Wilko had debts of £625 million when it went under. The failure left its pension fund with a huge deficit, meaning over a thousand workers who are yet to retire face the prospect of reduced annual incomes for life.
But Wilko’s ultimate parent, Amalgamated Holdings Wilkinson Limited (AHWL), last week said it did not believe it had any obligation to fill the pensions hole.
AHWL – whose directors include Lisa Wilkinson, grand-daughter of the company’s founder – added it had ‘never been the sponsoring employer’ or provided the scheme with a guarantee.
Failure: The discount chain went bust a year ago with the loss of over 12,000 jobs and the closure of 400 stores
The comments were slammed by Lord Mann, a former Labour MP and Treasury Select Committee chairman whose Bassetlaw constituency included Wilko’s Worksop headquarters. He described the owners as ‘the new unacceptable face of capitalism’.
He said: ‘Their place in history as a successful family firm has been destroyed in a frenzy of greed. It is quite appalling, the law is clearly too weak,’ Mann added.
Wilko’s pension plan could be bailed out by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), the industry lifeboat which is assessing the scheme. Experts said there were also precedents for owners making good pension fund holes.
Dr Gordon Fletcher of Salford University Business School noted that businessman Sir Philip Green paid £363 million into the pension fund of 11,000 BHS workers two years after its collapse in 2016. Calls are growing for the Wilkinson family to follow suit.
‘It is an absolute disgrace that Wilko’s family owners believe they do not have to face their responsibilities to loyal workers,’ said Nadine Houghton, national officer for the GMB union.
No one was at home last week at the £3 million three-storey house occupied by Lisa Wilkinson and her husband in one of the most exclusive roads in Cambridge.
‘Devastated’: Lisa Wilkinson pictured at last year’s select committee
Cobwebs had gathered around the front doors of the property.
A neighbour said they had not seen Lisa Wilkinson in weeks.
Last year, she tearfully told MPs that she was devastated by the collapse of the discount retailer but claimed the family’s multimillion-pound fortune was not enough to repair the pension fund. The parent company did not have enough assets, which were mostly tied up in start-up businesses and UK properties, Wilkinson said.
Only £20 million of the £70 million pension fund gap is secured against Wilko’s assets, meaning that pensioners will lose the bulk of what they are owed unless the Wilkinson family coughs up or the PPF makes good the shortfall.
The PPF promises to pay in full pensions that are already being drawn, but only around 90 per cent of payments due to members who had not retired when their employer went bust.
A PPF spokesman said: ‘We are working closely with The Pensions Regulator and the scheme trustees to ensure the best possible outcome for members.
‘We want to reassure members, at what must be a concerning time for them, that we are here to protect them for as long as they need us.’
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