Euro Garages has snapped up four sites from its stricken fellow Top 50 Indie High Noon Stores.
Greg Palfrey, who was appointed joint administrator for High Noon Stores on January 27, confirmed the deal with Euro Garages and said there was strong interest in the remaining sites.
High Noon Stores is a convenience store chain and forecourt operator and had 15 sites including 10 forecourts across west and south Wales and Cornwall, and was ranked 32nd in last year’s Top 50 Indies.
Palfrey said the company ran out of cash over the new year period and had therefore had to stop trading.
Local newspaper reports said the company’s stores in Wales had closed suddenly on December 30, although the Spar store and Post Office at the Gulf-branded Kew Service Station in Cornwall limped on until its closure on January 26, despite having no fuel or newspapers since before Christmas.
The Welsh newspapers quoted customers as saying the store and forecourt at Whitemill on the A40 had stopped selling fuel a couple of weeks before its final closure, and that it had closed a few times at very short notice because of a problem with the power supply.
Pictures that were published showed hand-written notices in the doors saying “we are closed until further notice”.
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