NINE jobs have been lost with the closure of Cargo Homeshop branches in Chesham and Princes Risborough after the business went into administration.

Ten branches throughout the group have closed, but those in Old Amersham and High Street, Marlow, will remain open.

JW Carpenter Ltd, trading as Cargo Homeshop, went into administration on July 18. Chartered accountants and insolvency specialists Stephen Swaden and Keith Goodman, partners in Leonard Curtis, were appointed joint administrators with a view to putting in place a company voluntary arrangement following the reorganisation of the business.

The company, founded in 1984, has 58 shops and an annual turnover of around £40million. It went through a similar exercise in 1993.

Mr Swaden said: 'During 1994 the company rebranded as Cargo, selling a wide range of household accessories, kitchenware and furniture and in 1997 acquired RJ's Homeshops Ltd.

'1999 saw the first profit for years and a profit of over £1million had been expected for the year to June, 2000.'

But the extended Christmas and New Year shutdown hit January sales figures which, combined with several underperforming stores and high head office costs, resulted in the company filing for administration.

To date, no job losses have been reported at either of the two warehouses in Thame, where JW Carpenter has its head office. No redundancies have been announced at the head office either.

Mr Swaden added: 'We hope to be able to supply all those customers who have paid deposits against undelivered goods and, while unavoidably we have had to make some redundancies, we also hope to have saved 500 jobs.'