Karen Wilkinson insists managers 'tried everything' to stop the business from falling into administration, putting 12,000 jobs at risk.
The former chair of Wilko has defended the multi-million pound dividends paid out to owners in the run-up to the chain’s collapse.
Lisa Wilkinson, granddaughter of founder James Kempsey Wilkinson, worked her way up the company over 20 years and helped oversee it until earlier this year.The founding family have been criticised for continuing to take out dividends even while the firm began to struggle. This has reportedly left a £50 million hole in one of its pension funds.
According to the Mail on Sunday, some £77 million has been paid out in dividends over the past decade, including a £63 million payout in 2015when one side of the family sold their shares to the other.But Ms Wilkinson insists managers threw ‘everything and everything again at trying to make Wilko a success’.
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