All Pumpkin Patch stores and online are closed, but a buyer may be found for the brand. Photo / NZ Herald
The receivers of Pumpkin Patch will have all stores closed by mid-February after they couldn't entice a buyer for the failed children's wear chain, which traded through the traditionally busy holiday period.
Sixty-eight stores employing 560 people will close by Jan. 31, and the remaining 56 stores across New Zealand
and Australia will shut as and when stock is sold, through the middle of next month, receiver Neale Jackson of KordaMentha said in a statement.
Pumpkin Patch staff at head office will lose their jobs over the coming weeks.
"We have successfully traded stores through the traditional holiday period and stock levels are now considerably reduced," Jackson said. "The balance of stock will be consolidated in the remaining stores as the receivership enters its final phase."
The company was tipped into receivership by its lenders in October and appointed voluntary administrators after failing to reinvent itself in the face of shrinking sales and too much debt. The receivers wanted to sell the business as a going concern, but couldn't shake out any buyers.
Pumpkin Patch owed its lender ANZ Bank New Zealand $59.5 million as of the date of receivership, the report says, up from $46 million at the year ended July 2016, when it posted an annual loss of $15.5 million.
