Oddbins shops bought back

Oddbins went into administration last month with debts of £20m. Since then more than half of the chain’s 89 stores have been sold, as well as the rights to the Oddbins brand name. However, Simon Baile, the former owner of Oddbins has now bought back five of his shops from the administrators. Three of the sites are in London, one in Surbiton and the fifth in Summertown. The shops will trade under the name of his existing company ExCellar, which already has shops in the UK and Paris. The ExCellar offering is interesting wines from small independent growers.

Baile’s acquisition has not gone down well amongst a sizeable number of bulletin board users – all of them anonymous, though almost certainly disgruntled former staff of Oddbins, several hundred of whom were made redundant.