British billionaire Chris Dawson joins the race to buy struggling Poundland

British retail tycoon Chris Dawson, the founder of discount homewares chain The Range, has entered the race to buy Poundland, the struggling UK discounter whose American owner is trying to find a buyer.

Dawson, often called the "Del Boy billionaire" in Britain after the market-trading hero of the BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses, brings a well-funded trade buyer into a contest that turned tense this week. Poundland employs nearly 12,000 people and runs between 550 and 600 stores, including its shops in Ireland, according to Sky News.

A crowded and uncertain sale

Gordon Brothers, the Boston-based investment and asset-disposal firm, bought Poundland from Warsaw-listed Pepco Group in June 2025 for £1 ($1.32). The deal came with a court-sanctioned restructuring plan that closed dozens of shops and two distribution centers. Pepco kept a minority stake.

A little over a year later, Gordon Brothers hired advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal to sell the business. It had aimed to agree a deal by the end of October and wants any buyer to repay in full a £30 million ($39.7 million) shareholder loan that it picked up for £1 as part of its own purchase, according to Sky News.

Several bidders are in the running. Martin Property Group, a privately owned Irish real estate company, is the preferred partner of Poundland's management team, led by managing director Barry Williams. It is the only bidder pursuing a solvent takeover that would keep the business out of administration, and it plans to keep the store estate and workforce, pay as little as £1 for the equity, repay existing loans and invest millions of pounds in a turnaround, Sky News reported.

Modella Capital, which owns stationery and books chain TG Jones and craft retailer Hobbycraft, has bid for the whole business. Hilco Capital, the owner of kitchenware retailer Lakeland, has also shown interest.

On Tuesday, Fortress Investment Group, the U.S. firm that owns rival discounter Poundstretcher, dropped its offer for all of Poundland and submitted a revised bid for 200 to 250 of the chain's roughly 530 UK stores. A deal of that kind would likely be structured as a pre-pack administration, in which a company is sold out of insolvency on terms agreed in advance.

Shopworkers' union Usdaw said it had "deep concerns" about the prospect of administration. Bally Auluk, a national officer at the union, said a decision could come "as early as tomorrow" and called administration "a disaster for our members." Fortress, Gordon Brothers and Alvarez & Marsal declined to comment, according to Sky News.

From market stalls to a retail empire

Dawson, 74, grew up in Plymouth, the son of a market trader, and left school at 15. He sold goods from a van and a suitcase before setting up Chris Dawson Superstores in 1989. The business, now CDS Superstores, trades as The Range and runs more than 250 stores across Britain, selling furniture, homewares, garden goods and crafts.

He has built much of his recent growth by buying failed retail brands. CDS bought the Wilko name and website for £5 million ($6.6 million) after the variety chain collapsed in 2023, and in November 2024 it bought the Homebase brand and 49 of the DIY chain's stores out of administration. Those sites have since been turned into larger The Range superstores. Poundland itself took over 71 former Wilko stores in 2023.

In August, CDS Superstores secured a £190 million ($251.3 million) revolving credit facility led by Wells Fargo Capital Finance, alongside HSBC and Citi. Chief Financial Officer Jamie Messham said at the time that the facility was "more than double our previous arrangement."

The Sunday Times Rich List valued Dawson and his wife, Sarah, at £2.5 billion ($3.3 billion) in 2024, up £475 million from a year earlier. Their wealth rests largely on their ownership of The Range.

Poundland was founded in 1990 by market traders who opened its first shop in Burton upon Trent, and it built its name on selling everything for £1. Under Gordon Brothers it has gone back to that price point, with about 60% of its grocery items now sold for £1. Recent sales figures show the chain improving, and a new store format has performed well, according to Sky News.