Simon Thomas, joint administrator and partner at Moorfields, said: ‘We have made every effort to secure a buyer for all or part of the company’s business. This process attracted some interest, but ultimately no party has been able to move forward with a formal bid prior to the expiration of the stated deadline.

‘It is therefore with great regret that we have made the difficult decision to make a number of positions redundant at the company’s head office in Maidenhead and proceed with a controlled store closure programme. We are grateful for the hard work of Toys R Us staff during this difficult period and will be providing support where we can to those who have been made redundant.’

Thomas said the administrators had imposed a deadline of midday on Wednesday for potential buyers of Toys R Us after its US parent went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year. Potential buyers who had been approached had been interested either only in the stock or in the fixtures and fittings.

Moorfields had already announced plans for 25 stores to close, but they will now all shut once remaining stock is sold off at discounted prices.  There have been 67 redundancies at the retailer’s UK head office in Maidenhead, and so far 377 shop staff have also been made redundant. The company employs close to 3,000 staff in total.

Report by Pat Sweet