Financial documents show that as LloydsPharmacy is wound down, it has just £8.2m at its disposal to pay off its debts, which amount to almost £300m.

The former multiple, which until recently was owned by asset management company Aurelius, changed its name to Diamond DCO Two Limited in November last year after hiving off all its branches into standalone companies and selling them off over the course of 2023. On January 16 this year, Diamond DCO began a liquidation process to wind down the company.

A statement of affairs published on Companies House last Monday (January 22) shows that as of January 10, the company had assets totalling £8,199,960 available for “preferential creditors” and £800,000 on hand to pay “unsecured creditors”. However, its debts stood at £293,259,027, spread across scores of creditors.

Over £280m of these debts are to companies affiliated with LloydsPharmacy and Aurelius, including £228m owed to Diamond DCO One Limited, £50m to Aurelius Crocodile and over £1.5m owed to AAH Pharmaceuticals, formerly the multiple’s wholesaling arm.

Other companies named in the liquidation filing as being owed significant sums of money include commercial branding company Sign Specialists, owed £392,000, Microsoft (£267,000) and Jersey-based company Makan Investments (£228,000).

A number of community pharmacy businesses are also named. The liquidation filing states that £6.2m is owed to Rowlands Pharmacy – a major purchaser of ex-Lloyds branches in Scotland last year. Rowlands told P3pharmacy that it does not comment on "commercial matters of this nature".

P3pharmacy has approached a number of the other pharmacies named in the filing, including Jhoots Pharmacy, which bought almost 40 LloydsPharmacy branches last year and is reportedly owed £322,000, Sharief Healthcare (£31,000) and Jardines Pharmacy (£113,000), to ascertain to what extent they are affected by the LloydsPharmacy liquidation.

Posting on LinkedIn, Conor Daly, a solicitor with Rushport Advisory LLP, said: “Many other creditors appear to be landlords who were renting pharmacy units to Lloyds and where (presumably) the new pharmacy owners (if there is one) will be paying the rent.”

Mr Daly warned that the insolvency could leave many creditors “significantly out of pocket”.

Smaller sums are owed to many more companies and organisations, including a number of NHS trusts owed £1 each. Communications International Group, publisher of P3pharmacy, Pharmacy Magazine, Independent Community Pharmacist and Training Matters, is owed £235.

The liquidation proceedings also cast doubt over the prospects of roughly 100 ex-Sainsbury’s pharmacists winning any money through legal claims relating to allegations that the company failed to uphold their redundancy rights under TUPE legislation when the supermarket branches were shut at the beginning of 2023.  

Asked today what the liquidation means for affected pharmacists, PDA director Paul Day said: “Even if we win the tribunals, there may be no money left to pay the compensation.”

The Diamond DCO Two Limited entity, which has business consultant Graham Wiseman as its director and sole active officer, does not appear to have a website or any public facing contact details other than a correspondence address in Redhill, Surrey. Aurelius refused to comment on the matter when approached by P3pharmacy.