Albemarle & Bond customers will be able to collect pawned items from H&T outlets after its loans were bought out by the rival pawnbroker.
H&T said it had agreed to pay £8m to buy the “pledge books” of A&B, which abruptly shut all its 116 stores without forewarning customers earlier this month. The deal will be finalised on 7 October.
The pledge books include thousands of short-term loans linked to customers’ belongings that A&B moved to a central warehouse in Oxford, causing a storm of protest as owners tried to retrieve their belongings via an overwhelmed helpline.
Worried customers who pledged valuables such as gold jewellery said they had been left in the dark about the whereabouts of their valuables and were unable to reach the company by phone or email. Staff said the pawnbroker’s clients were used to handling their financial dealings in cash, face to face, and some did not have bank accounts.
Staff, many of whom had spent their working lives at A&B, said they were offered no support from the company to cope with angry customers in the few days between items being moved to Oxford and the closure of stores.
The deal will enable customers of A&B and its sister chain, Herbert Brown, to redeem or extend their existing loans, known as pledges, through H&T stores. The pawnbroker has 248 outlets around the UK.
Kohei Ogawa, the chief executive of Daikokuya Holdings, the Japanese parent company of A&B’s owner, Speedloan Finance, said: “We deeply apologise to customers for any uncertainty and upset caused by our decision to close in the UK.
“Once we decided to do this, we had to move quickly in order to secure more than 35,000 customer pledges in our central secure facility. This agreement with H&T is a good outcome for customers and will enable them to redeem or extend their pledges with minimal disruption.”
The deal with H&T does not include A&B’s stores, where rent was due to be paid on Monday.
About 400 staff were made redundant when the stores closed. Workers were paid their final wages last week but one member of staff said many would not receive redundancy payments or P45s until late October.
Herbert Brown said less than a fortnight ago that it remained a solvent business and promised to keep customers informed.
John Nichols, the H&T chief executive, said: “This is an exciting transaction and enables us to cement our position as the UK’s leading pawnbroker. Our immediate focus is to do everything we can to support A&B’s customers.”
The company said it expected the acquisition of A&B’s pledge books would help improve H&T’s profits in the year ahead. It added that the group was trading above expectations for the year.
Daikokuya said it had shut down its UK operations for good, blaming a £7m loss and the uncertainty of Brexit.
