Poundland blocked from buying new stock despite £86m turnaround

There are two competing narratives in the Poundland saga.

The first, advanced by its American owner Gordon Brothers, is that despite considerable efforts to revive its fortunes, the discount retailer remains on the brink of collapse and the best way to preserve jobs may be to break up the business and sell its stores to other retailers.

The second is that Poundland is in the middle of a remarkable turnaround and that allowing it to fall into administration would be an outrage.