Supermarket chain Morrisons has bought 49 stores from failed DVD and games rental chain Blockbuster as it steps up plans to expand its convenience business.
The deal will not prevent any of the job cuts already announced by Blockbuster administrators Deloitte, but Morrisons said it hopes to create around 1,000 jobs as it reopens the shops as convenience stores.
The UK's fourth-biggest grocer also announced the rebranding of its M Local convenience business to Morrisons M local.
Today's announcement - for an undisclosed sum - follows the recent acquisition of seven stores from collapsed camera retailer Jessops as Morrisons takes advantage of quick access to high street locations to build up its convenience chain.
It is accelerating expansion plans after struggling to compete because of its small number of convenience stores, as well as a lack of grocery delivery service.
Morrisons, which currently has 12 M Local stores, reported a disappointing 2.5% decline in like-for-like sales for the six weeks to December 30, which followed a 2.1% decline in the previous quarter.
The Bradford-based business is leading a fightback under recently appointed chief executive Dalton Philips, launching an advertising campaign fronted by TV presenters Ant and Dec earlier this year and sponsoring hit shows Britain's Got Talent and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.
Morrisons hopes to have at least 70 convenience stores by the end of 2013, while it is expected to announce the latest move towards a full-scale online food delivery service alongside its annual results on March 14.
Gordon Mowat, managing director of Morrisons Convenience, said: "We are rolling out the Morrisons M local estate at pace this year and these acquisitions give us a kickstart in securing a solid foothold in this key sector.
"The convenience market is growing as more people shop locally and we want to be in a position to take advantage of this."
Many of the Blockbuster stores are located in the South East - an area where Morrisons is keen to increase its presence - and are expected to open for trading by the end of the summer.
The stores bought are among the 164 stores earmarked for closure by Deloitte last week, which threatens around 800 jobs and comes on top of the 168 shop closures and 760 job cuts already announced.
Blockbuster, which had 528 staff and employed 4,190 staff, collapsed into administration last month after struggling to adapt to the changing market and rivalry from internet retailers including Netflix, Amazon's LoveFilm and iTunes, which now offers a movie rental service.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article