Preston tycoon pulls out of BHS bidding

Mr Bhailok confirmed he had hoped to revive about three quarters of the company’s 164 shops, excluding the 40 heavily loss-making ‘red’ branches.

But he said, after giving it his “best shot”, he would now be leaving it to “other higher bidders”.

In a statement, he confirmed Retail Revive Ltd was “minded to now let the administrators concentrate with the other higher offers received”.

He said: “The administrators have advised that there are higher bids tabled and our bid can only be considered competitively if we substantially increased preferring a bid for the whole.

“Our business model was to exclude the 40 ‘red’ stores from the purchase if we were successful bidders from the outset.

“Our commercial intentions were to revive the stores which had a fair potential to succeed making use of the surplus floor space within the large stores.”

The statement added: “To now bid for the whole of the operation, this scenario in our opinion leaves us with a potentially more riskier operation from day one than we had envisaged.

“Our future business model cannot be further compromised hence we are not able to progress the matter further.”

BHS has stores across Lancashire, including in Fishergate, Preston.