Merry Hill BHS to be one of last stores to shut
The BHS branch at Merry Hill shopping centre will be among the last 35 shops of the doomed chain to close this week.
The 88-year-old retailer is set to disappear from the high street entirely by the weekend.
Administrators to the department store chain are set to shut 13 stores tomorrow and 22 stores – including Merry Hill – on Saturday, bringing an end to a chapter of British retail history.
Duff & Phelps and FRP Advisory have already overseen 128 closures over the past weeks, including BHS's flagship Oxford Street shop and its branches in Wolverhampton, Walsall, Telford and Birmingham city centre.
The department store's collapse in April has affected 11,000 jobs, 22,000 pensions, sparked a lengthy parliamentary inquiry and left its high-profile former owners potentially facing a criminal investigation.
Retail billionaire Sir Philip Green has borne the brunt of the public fallout, having been branded the 'unacceptable face of capitalism' by furious MPs.
Sir Philip owned BHS for 15 years before selling it to serial bankrupt Dominic Chappell for £1 in 2015.
Sir Philip has come under fire for taking more than £400 million in dividends from the chain, leaving it with a £571m pension deficit and for selling it to a man with no retail experience.Veteran Labour MP Frank Field has asked the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to launch a formal investigation into the pair to ascertain if any criminal wrongdoing occurred during the sale of the chain and throughout their respective ownerships. It has also emerged that Mr Field is probing Sir Philip's Arcadia retail empire, which includes Topshop.
Councillor Khurshid Ahmed, who is in charge of economic development at Dudley Council, said the loss of BHS was a blow for the centre and borough as a whole. He said: "I hope someone else will take up the premises."
