Phones 4U creditors to receive up to 24p in the pound says PwC
Collapsed mobile phone retailer Phones 4U will return up to 20-24p in the pound to senior creditors, but suppliers and the taxman will get relatively little from the administration.
PwC, which was appointed administrator in September last year, said super senior noteholders – typically hedge funds and other asset managers – will receive nearly a quarter of the debts owed when the national phone shop collapsed last autumn.
The initial debts owed totalled £430m, and creditors should be repaid within 12 months.
However unsecured creditors – typically suppliers and HMRC – are likely to see a return of just 0.4p in the pound.
Phones 4U also owed £3.4m to staff, and PwC said it had made significant progress in paying this off. The remainder will be paid in the next six-to-nine months.
The retailer fell apart last year when network operators Vodafone and EE withdrew from stores.
After the company went into administration, around 2,000 jobs were saved through a combination of EE and Vodafone taking on units for their own monobrand stores and a transfer of staff from Phones 4U concessions to the Dixons Carphone stores they were based in at the time.
However the remaining 362 stores were closed, costing 1,697 jobs.