Administrators were appointed to S&PB Retail Limited, the company behind the Sayers and Poundbakery shop estates, on 15 September 2026. The notice reached The Gazette six days later. The appointment follows the closure of 19 shops in August and around 100 redundancies across a business that describes itself as the largest independent retail baker in north-west England.
Sayers has traded from Liverpool since 1914 and now runs shops across the north west alongside the Poundbakery fascia, the value-led brand that sits in the same group. The two names share one operating company, S&PB Retail Limited, registered at Companies House under number 12570881.
That is the entity now in administration. A separate company, Sayers and Poundbakery Limited, carries a near-identical name and is not the subject of the appointment.
What the Gazette notice records
The notice names three joint administrators. Gareth Harris and James Woodhead act for RSM UK Restructuring Advisory LLP, and Richard Oddy for Azets Holdings Limited, all three working from Leeds. The matter sits in the High Court of Justice, Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, Insolvency and Companies List, under court number CR-2026-007133. The appointment took effect on 15 September 2026, and the notice was published on 21 September 2026, which is the usual sequence rather than a delay.
Nineteen shops closed in August
The administration follows a round of closures the company confirmed in August. Nineteen shops shut, concentrated on Merseyside, with around 100 redundancies. The estate stood at 91 shops before that exercise and at 72 after it.
The company attributed the decision to a difficult trading period, pointing to changes in customer habits, weaker high street footfall and cost increases it found hard to pass on. “Several locations are no longer commercially viable,” it said at the time.
A company-owned estate, not a franchised one
Neither Sayers nor Poundbakery publishes a franchise offer on its own site, and no franchisee recruitment material appears alongside either fascia. Both are operated directly, which puts every one of the 72 remaining shops inside the administration rather than in the hands of independent operators, the difference between a company-owned estate and a franchised one set out in what a franchise is.
That distinction matters in food to go, where several of the bakery and pastry franchises recruiting in the UK run a mixed estate, and where a franchised shop sits with its franchisee when the franchisor fails.
Good to know
Administration and liquidation are separate procedures under the Insolvency Act 1986. An administration appoints an officeholder to manage the company, with the statutory purposes running from rescuing the company as a going concern through to realising property for creditors. A liquidation winds the company up.
The Gazette notice for S&PB Retail records an appointment of administrators, not a winding up. What happens to a franchisee if the franchisor enters either procedure depends on the franchise agreement, since no statutory protection covers it.
What comes next for the estate
No statement from the administrators had been published at the time of writing, and no figure for remaining staff numbers has been released since the August announcement. The filings to watch sit on the Companies House record for 12570881, where the administrators’ proposals are due within eight weeks of appointment, and on The Gazette, which carries any subsequent notice on the same company.
Both are free to search, and both will register a sale of the business or a change of procedure before the trade press does. Checking those filings before signing with any network is part of assessing a franchisor’s financial standing, which our guide on how to choose your franchisor covers.
