The supermarket chain has lodged a last-gasp offer to seize control of McColl's and prevent it falling into the hands of its Asda-owning rivals, Sky News learns.
Sources told Sky News last week that the lenders were demanding immediate repayment, leading them to opt for a rival bid from EG Group, the petrol retailing behemoth, that involved instant repayment of the bulk of their debts but was conditional on McColl's being placed into administration.
In a stock exchange announcement on Friday afternoon, McColl's said its board had"regrettably... [been] left with no choice other than to place the company in administration, appointing PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP as administrators, in the expectation that they intend to implement a sale of the business to a third-party purchaser as soon as possible".
Attention will now turn to the decision made by the lenders, which include the taxpayer-backed NatWest Group, with Barclays and HSBC also said to be part of the borrowing facility. It was unclear how many of McColl's 16,000-strong workforce would keep their jobs under the rival proposals from Morrisons and EG Group, although sources close to the situation believe that some stores would ultimately be closed under either scenario.
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