Homebase owner Hilco who had been looking to sell the struggling retailer, was not successful in finding an outright buyer. Homebase in the meanwhile has collapsed into administration putting 2, 000 jobs at risk. Plymouth-based tycoon Chris Dawson’s The Range, owner of Homeware chain is buying 70 stores and the brand, safeguarding 1, 600 jobs. The remaining 49 stores and the head office, are in the hands of Teneo the administrator.

Homebase CEO Damian McGloughlin said the past three years had been incredibly challenging for DIY stores. Restructuring specialist Hilco, which rescued music chain HMV in 2013

Homebase recently completed the sale of 11 of its UK stores to Sainsbury’s. Hilco bought Homebase in 2018 for £1 from Wesfarmers  who had bought Homebase for £340m in 2016 and subsequently sacked Homebase’s senior management team. Homebase was founded in 1979 by Sainsbury’s and Belgian-owned department store chain GB-inno-BM, with its first branch in Croydon. In the 1990s Sainsbury’s bought Texas Homestore and rebranded it as Homebase, and in the 2000s it was sold to Shroder Ventures, then GUS, then Home Retail Group.