Joules in Inverness to continue trading after being bought out of administration

Workers at the Joules store in Eastgate Shopping Centre in Inverness will keep their jobs after the business was bought out of administration.

A deal was struck between retail rival Next and founder Tom Joule allowing it to continue trading.

Next has confirmed that it is planning to run around 100 of Joules’ 124 stores – however 19 stores will be shut by the administrators today with 133 redundancies.

The Inverness branch is unaffected by the closures and will continue trading.

The deal means that Next now owns a 74 per cent stake in the business while Mr Joule retains the remaining 26 per cent share.

Administrators Interpath Advisory were called in last month after emergency funding was not secured – this followed rising costs and reduced demand.

Next chief executive Lord Wolfson said: "We are excited to see what can be achieved through the combination of Joules’ exceptional product, marketing and brand building skills with Next’s Total Platform infrastructure.”

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