TWO hundred workers at a Huddersfield company face a worrying future after they were sent home after arriving at work.

The day shift at Bon Marché in Grange Moor was told to go home and not come in again until they received a phone call when they arrived for work yesterday morning.

The staff who were working in the warehouse on Tuesday night had the bad news broken to them right at the end of their shift.

It is understood that 200 staff have been sent home in all.

The news came hours before the firm’s parent company, The Peacock Group, fell into administration, putting some 9,600 jobs at risk.

Professional services firm KPMG said it had been appointed administrator to Peacocks which owns 611 stores and 49 concessions across the UK, as well as its parent company The Peacock Group.

KPMG said all Peacocks stores remain open, as it seeks to find a buyer for the business and no redundancies have been made.

KPMG said Bon Marché, which employs 3,800 staff and operates some 394 stores, has not entered administration and a buyer is being sought for the business.

In a statement released late yesterday it said: “The Group’s Bon Marché Limited is in advanced and exclusive discussions with a potential purchaser.

“Existing management continue to remain in place at Bon Marché as an administrator has not been appointed.”

Bon Marché filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators on Monday, but this allows 10 working days before the appointment of administrators.

Bon Marché’s base at Grange Moor is a busy distribution centre with 150,000 garments in and out of the warehouse every day from deliveries from suppliers to lorries taking the stock to its stores.

It has been operating 24-hours a day, but the number of deliveries has dropped off alarmingly in recent days.

One Bon Marché warehouse worker, who asked not to be named, said: “We get 15 to 20 major deliveries a day but this week that has fallen off to virtually nothing and people have been just cleaning.

“The potential buyer, a European company, came to look round on Monday.’’

He said the shock news that staff were to be sent home left them stunned.

“I was one of those told at 9.30pm on Tuesday,” he said. “We understood that a meeting was called for 7.30pm but was then put back right to the end of the shift so we were told and then left.

“We’ve been told to wait for a phone call on Friday about our futures. It is all just so uncertain and worrying.”

He said staff had been paid as usual on Friday. The next payday is Friday February 10.

Bon Marché also has stores locally at New Street in Huddersfield and one in Dewsbury.

Cardiff-based Peacocks also has a store in Huddersfield, at the Piazza, and one in Dewsbury town centre.

The group said that it was taking the difficult step of appointing administrators to Peacocks in order to protect the business.

Directors and their advisers have been in talks about restructuring the business with the group’s lenders, but said the talks had ended with no agreement reached.

Peacocks increased same-store sales by 17% over Christmas and continues to trade profitably.

But independent advisors were recently asked to prepare a review of the group’s finances, which include £240m of debt.

Peacock Group chief executive Richard Kirk said: “Peacocks is a brand with great heritage and it is with deep sadness that we have been left with no other option but to place the business into administration.

“We have worked tirelessly over the past year to agree a new financial structure to take the business forward in the current, tough retail environment, including seeking new investment for the business.

“This is a hugely sad development for all of our stakeholders, especially our employees who have shown total commitment to the business over an uncertain and difficult period.”

Bon Marché was founded by the late Parkash Singh Chima, who arrived in the UK from India in 1950 and settled in Cambridgeshire. He started out as a door-to-door salesman on a bicycle, selling clothing to the local farming community.

In 1982, he and his family moved to Huddersfield and began selling clothing from market stalls. Their first Bon Marché store was opened in Doncaster in 1985.

Mr Chima ran the business with sons Gurchait and Gurnaik. They sold the company to the Peacocks Group in 2002.