Unwins stores up for grabs
Unwins remaining 150 off-licences, following the company's collapse
last month.
Today is the last chance to lodge bids for the company's stores and rivals Whittalls Wines and Oddbins are thought to be amongst potential bidders.
Local retailers and property companies have also joined the race but some have presented offers for individual stores as opposed to bidding for all 150 outlets.
A spokesperson for Unwins administrators, KPMG said: "There have been lots of expressions of interest in the remaining Unwins outlets and it is now a question of sifting through them."
Threshers, the UK's largest independent off-licence chain, acquired 200 stores from the bankrupt company ten days ago for less than £10million (€14m).
The new owner, which opened around 70 of the stores in time for the New Year, hopes to salvage 1,200 of the 1,800 jobs lost following Unwins closure.
Unwins, which was a leading retailer in the UK of wines, beers and spirits, went into administration in December.
Industry experts believe it failed to keep up with market trends whilst trying to compete with growing dominance of supermarkets in alcohol retailing.
However The Telegraph newspaper reported that Unwins chairman, Philip Cook, intends to make a claim against former shareholders, directors and auditors of the company.
Cook alleges that when equity group DM Equity bought the company in March last year for £32m it had a £3.7m deficit rather than a £9.5m net asset value.
