Phones 4U to go into administration
15/09/2014
High street mobile phone chain, Phones 4U is to be forced into administration after both Vodafone and EE decided not to renew their contracts with them.
Phones 4U employ over 5,500 people, all of whom could potentially lose their jobs.
David Kassler, chief executive at Phones 4U said that without the contracts with Vodafone and EE, the company “do not have a business”.
Phones 4U also announced details about how customers and staff would be affected by the news.
Customers were told that any mobile phone contracts taken out through the company would not be affected. However, those who ordered a new phone over the past weekend will have their orders cancelled and receive an automatic refund.
Staff were told to continue coming in to work as usual, where they will receive information about how they will be affected. They were also told that all staff would “continue to be paid until further notice”.
“A complete shock”
The news was described as a “very sad day” by Mr Kassler. He also said: "A good company making profits of over £100m, employing thousands of decent people has been forced into administration."
Phones 4U said that the decisions from Vodafone and EE to not renew their contracts came as “a complete shock”.
Stefano Quadrio Curzio, from BC Partners, the company that owns Phones 4U said: "Vodafone has acted in exactly the opposite way to what they had consistently indicated to the management of Phones 4U over more than six months”.
He also accused the mobile network operator as acting maliciously, by stating that the behaviour of Vodafone “appears to have been designed to inflict the maximum damage to their partner of 15 years, giving Phones 4U no time to develop commercial alternatives.”
However, Vodafone denied any accusations of any wrong doing by stating:
“We strongly reject any suggestion that we behaved inappropriately at any stage during our negotiations with Phones 4U.
"Phones 4U was offered repeated opportunities to propose competitive distribution terms to enable us to conclude a new agreement, but was unable to do so."
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