Bruno Secatore, Daniel Juratowitch and Glenn Spooner of Chartered Accounting firm Cor Cordis, voluntary administrators of Fletcher Jones & Staff, announced a restructure of Fletcher Jones intended to increase its prospects of sale.

The restructure includes the immediate closure of 15 Fletcher Jones stores across Australia, a third of Fletcher Jones’ existing 45 stores. Sixty-one staff across the stores and head office has been made redundant. The remaining 30 stores will continue to trade as normal.

“As administrators it was important that we acted quickly to shore up the viability of Fletcher Jones to make it an attractive acquisition so it can keep trading,” Secatore said.

“These stores were selected on the basis of trading performance over a period of time.

“The redundancies include 53 retail staff and 8 from head office, a mix of casual, part-time and full-time workers. They will be paid their full entitlements, including payment in lieu of notice, redundancy and owed annual leave or long service leave.

Fletchers Jones has been in voluntary administration since 7 December.