Liverpool homeware retailer Taskers strikes deal with creditors after annual sales plummet 10% and pre-tax losses widen to £2.4m – but it insists its fortunes are improving. Tony McDonough reports
One of Liverpool’s best-known retailers, homeware brand Taskers, has had to enter an agreement with creditors after battling falling sales and suffering widening losses.
Taskers, which dates back to the 1950s, entered what is called a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) in June 2024. This is a legally binding agreement between a company and its creditors to pay off debts over a set period.
A CVA offers struggling businesses breathing space to turn around their fortunes. And in accounts just filed on Companies House in the last few days, the company insisted the medicine was working with like-for-like sales increasing and overheads reduced.
Covering the 12 months to February 29, 2024, Taskers said in the accounts sales fell 10% to £13.5m. Pre-tax losses widened significantly to around £2.4m from just over £1m a year earlier.
With the CVA in place the business, whose majority shareholder is John Tasker, began a restructuring process. Most notable was the closure of Taskers’ Hunts Cross branch and the sale of land previously occupied by its Wavertree store which closed in 2017.
The Wavertree disposal generated £3m and this money has proven critical to the turnaround strategy. It enabled Taskers to repay two bank loans, reduce its mortgage and clear its overdraft. This will save the business £669,000 a year.
In common with many consumer-facing firms, Taskers has had to battle rising inflation, interest rates and a cost-of-living crisis hitting consumer confidence. It also faced soaring costs in freight, consumer finance, bank, loan and credit card charges.
Creditors, including HMRC, gave more than 90% backing to the CVA. In the accounts Taskers said: “The operating costs of Hunts Cross were significantly increased with high business rates and rent having a massive negative impact on the business’s liquidity and profitability.
“It was the opinion of the directors that the profitable Aintree site, along with our online offering, would help ensure that the company would return to profit in the future without the additional financial pressures that an additional store brought.
“As a result, the company made a decision to enter a CVA after this accounting period, the main impact of which was to close the loss-making Hunts Cross site. This decision was considered to be in the best interests of our creditors and the business as a whole.
“In the months following the CVA being accepted by our creditors, the company has seen an increase in like-for-like sales and a significant reduction in overheads which is bringing the company back to profitability and ensuring it meets its liabilities and legal obligations.”
Taskers opened its first store in Goodison Road in Liverpool’s Walton district in the 1950s. It grew steadily to become one of Merseyside’s most trusted retail brands offering a large range of furniture and homewares.
However, over the past decade the business has had to adapt to a rapidly-changing retail environment with the rise of e-commerce affecting the viability of bricks and mortar homeware stores.
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Taskers has also reduced wage costs by 10% and, as of today, Aintree remains its only physical outlet along with its online presence.
Although the directors remain hopeful of a return to profitability they added the business continues to trade in a “very challenging and uncertain economic backdrop”. They also said: “While we remain in the CVA we also face challenges with suppliers and credit agencies with more pro-forma invoicing required.”