After administrators Moorfields Corporate Recovery failed to secure a buyer for Blockbuster UK’s 91 remaining stores, the company has announced that they will be all be shut down next week.
All remaining Blockbuster stores in the UK will be closed, forever, on December 16th. This is a move that will cause a loss of 808 jobs. All remaining stock will be sold off on Sunday the 15th at huge discounts.
On November 11th, Simon Thomas and Nicholas O’Reilly of Moorfields Corporate Recovery LLP were appointed Joint Administrators.
“It is with regret that we have to make today’s announcement, we appreciate this is a difficult time for all concerned and would like to thank staff for their professionalism and support over the past month. Unfortunately, we were unable to secure a buyer for the group as a going concern and as a result had to take the regrettable action to close the remaining stores,” said Thomas and O’Reilly
Of course, Blockbuster UK’s closure comes a little more than a month after Blockbuster shuttered all domestic retail operations in the US. Its corporate owner, DISH Network, closed the final 300 company-owned Blockbuster US stores in early November. Franchised and licensed stores in the US remained open for business.
And exactly one month ago today, someone rented the last movie ever from a company-owned Blockbuster store – and it was just perfect.
The last BLOCKBUSTER rental 11/9 Hawaii 11PM @ThisIsTheEnd #BlockbusterMemories @Sethrogen @JamesFrancoTV @JonahHill http://t.co/RsXABlqfzL
— Blockbuster (@blockbuster) November 11, 2013
Image via Blockbuster UK