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Get you up to speed: Leading UK supermarket faces collapse and potential closure of 300 stores | News UK
MERGER THREAT
Southern Co-op faces potential insolvency unless it merges with the Co-operative Group, following three years of significant operating losses exceeding £23 million.
Southern Co-op faces potential insolvency unless it merges with the Co-operative Group, following three years of significant operating losses exceeding £23 million.
MERGER DECISION
Southern Co-op chair Janat Paraskeva and CEO Ben Stimson warned that without a merger, the group could face insolvency, jeopardising jobs and local stores.
Southern Co-op chair Janat Paraskeva and CEO Ben Stimson warned that without a merger, the group could face insolvency, jeopardising jobs and local stores.
URGENT MERGER DISCUSSIONS
Southern Co-op members will vote next month on a proposed merger with Co-operative Group to avoid potential insolvency and job losses.
Southern Co-op members will vote next month on a proposed merger with Co-operative Group to avoid potential insolvency and job losses.
What we know so far
A major UK supermarket chain, Southern Co-op, is facing potential insolvency unless it merges with its national counterpart, the Co-operative Group, following three years of significant losses.
Southern Co-op’s leadership revealed in a letter to members that the brand posted operating losses exceeding £23 million for 2025. Chair Janat Paraskeva and CEO Ben Stimson cautioned that without the merger, the group would likely “enter insolvency through administration,” endangering jobs and impacting suppliers.
Members will convene at a special meeting next month to vote on the proposed merger. Store manager Charlotte de Costa emphasised the urgency of the matter, stating that stores would “cease trading” if the merger is not approved. She noted, “It’s as cut throat as it reads,” urging support for the proposal to protect jobs and local stores.
The Southern Co-op currently operates over 300 locations across southern England, including food stores and funeral parlours, and maintains some branding similarities with the Co-operative Group. However, it remains a separate entity.
The impending decision will determine the future of the group amidst difficult trading conditions that have prompted reliance on support from banks and suppliers to sustain operations.
Read in full
Major UK supermarket on brink of collapse and at risk of closing 300 stores | News UK
A major UK supermarket may undergo a merger to save it from collapse following three years of losses.
Bosses at Southern Co-op have warned the chain faces insolvency unless it merges with the national Co-operative Group amid ‘difficult’ trading in the last few years.
The brand currently operates more than 300 food stores, funeral parlours and Starbucks Coffee branches across southern England.
While it shares some branding and products with its national counterpart, Southern Co-op remains a separate business.
The group posted operating losses of more than £23 million for 2025.
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In a letter to members, chair Janat Paraskeva and CEO Ben Stimson said without the proposed merger, the group would likely ‘enter insolvency through administration’.
This would in turn ‘put jobs at risk, lead to the loss of stores and negatively impact our suppliers, they said.
Their letter read: ‘Southern Co-op has made losses for the past three years. Over the last year, trading has become more difficult and we have relied on ongoing support from our banks and suppliers to continue operating.
‘That support cannot now be increased within the time available.
‘To continue trading without a merger, we would need a significant level of financial support and we have not received any offers of funding at that level.’
It continued: ‘This is not a position we ever wanted to be in. Like you, we believe strongly in the value of an independent co-operative, and we have explored every realistic option to protect that.
‘It is not an easy decision, but it is the one that protects more jobs, more services, and more value for members than any other option available to us today.’
Members have been invited to a special meeting next month to vote on the group’s future.
Among those supporting the move is Charlotte de Costa, a store manager from Portsmouth, who warned that stores would ‘cease trading’ if the merger did not go ahead.
She wrote: ‘It’s as cut throat as it reads. If we merge, it gives us the best chance to stay trading, protect jobs and gives us a better chance of remaining as your local stores.
‘Voting against, we will cease trade. There is no other options. These have all been explored. We cannot remain independent.’
October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says
@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides
Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate
Or far far worse
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To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
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November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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