THE last of the stock belonging to the old Beales department store chain has been sold for £2,500, an update from administrators has revealed.

It is still not known how much money will be left for unsecured creditors nearly two years after the last of the Bournemouth-based retailer’s 23 stores closed.

The original Beales chain went into administration in January 2020 and the final stores closed at the start of the Covid crisis that March, 139 years after the chain was founded in Bournemouth by John Elmes Beale.

The company owed £12.6million in loans and had a multi-million pound pension deficit.

Unsecured creditors were owed an estimated £17.6m.

The latest update from administrators at Interpath Ltd says: “Based on current estimates, we anticipate that unsecured creditors should receive a dividend.

“We have yet to determine the amount of this, but we will do so when we have completed payment of associated costs, adjudicated employees’ preferential claims and agreed creditors’ claims.”

Secured creditors face a substantial shortfall. Preferential creditors – including employees owed wages, holiday pay and pension benefits – are owed around £227,000 and should be paid in full.

Closing down sales at the Beales stores did so well in 2020 that administrators had to supplement the workforce with agency staff.

Stock that was still unsold was sent to the Peterborough store and was later sold under an arrangement with New Start 2020, the company that has reopened the Beales branches in Poole, Peterborough and Southport.

But the report says that arrangement ended after sales of the old stock declined to minimal levels – and the “age and fragmented nature” of the stock meant the new retailer was not interested in buying the rest. The last of the stock was sold to trading agent Hilco Capital for £2,500.

Joint administrators William Wright and Stephen Absolom say £43,846 was raised under the concession agreement with New Start 2020 in the period in question.

Another £3,500 was raised by selling the stores’ web domain, beale.co.uk, to the new retailer.

A further £77,361 came in thanks to business rates rebates.

However, the administrators settled paid £67,252 in business rates for the Bournemouth store. Other costs included an insurance bill of £29,482.

The report also says a number of staff made tribunal claims after being made redundant before the administration process. The claims were heard in September 2021.