The group trades under the William Munro Cleaners retail brand name as well as Klick Photopoint and Max Spielman names in the photoprocessing market. The company employs 1,664 people across its network of 314 shops, processing centre in Wishaw, head office in Glasgow and warehouse in Chester. There are 197 branches of Klick stores and 117 Max Spielman, with around 60 Klick stores also providing Munro Cleaners outlets.
Blair Nimmo and Tony Friar of KPMG Restructuring were appointed as joint administrators on 2 December 2008. There are no plans to close any outlets at present.
A statement from the administrators explained that Bowie Castlebank’s photoprocessing arm had been “significantly” loss-making in recent years, due to the advance of digital photography, while the cleaning business had been hit by reduced use of clothing requiring drycleaning. The company had looked into a restructuring or refinancing but had not been able to achieve this.
“The administrators have unfortunately had no option but to significantly reduce trading activity with the regrettable consequence of 817 redundancies,” said Blair Nimmo, joint administrator and head of restructuring for KPMG in Scotland. “We are currently working with government agencies to ensure the employees’ issues are dealt with as quickly as possible.
“We are marketing the business in an attempt to secure a sale of some of the group’s stores or operations as a going concern. Any interested parties should contact the joint administrators as soon as possible.”
