--- Updated with details about administration ---
Ailing retail chain BHS is to enter administration following the reported failure of rescue attempts including talks with Sports Direct International PLC (LON:SPD).
Owner Retail Acquisitions (RA), which includes investor and former racing driver Dominic Chappell, said it had been unable to secure a funder or a trade sale, according to the BBC.
In a letter to staff, Chappell reportedly assured the chain's 11,000 staff they would get their wages this month.
"I would like to say it has been a real pleasure working with all of you on the BHS project, one I will never forget," the BBC reported him as saying in the letter.
"You all need to keep your heads held high, you all have done a great job, but remember it was always going to be very, very hard to turn around."
Duff & Phelps has reportedly been appointed as administrator.
Mike Ashley’s retail chain was said to have been in discussions with RA about buying part of the group.
But the talks are thought to have stalled on concerns about BHS's £571mln pension deficit.
RA bought BHS last year from fashion entrepreneur Philip Green for a nominal £1.
But RA is understood to have struggled to produce the £160mln of funding it had pledged to inject into the business.
Green’s Arcadia retail group bought the chain, which employs nearly 11,000 jobs, in 2000 for £200mln.
Last month, BHS is said to have reached a deal with landlords to shore up its finances by reducing the rent bill on most of its stores.
But BHS, which failed to unveil a new £60mln loan last week as had been expected, said it still needed more cash to stay open.
It is reported to have debts of more than £1.3bn, including the pension deficit.
The Guardian reported last month that the pension regulator may force Green to inject £280mln into the BHS pension scheme.
The fund was in surplus when Green bought BHS in May 2000, the newspaper reported.
But pension trustees wrote to members in December last year warning that the company’s two funds had a combined deficit of £225.6mln, according to the Guardian.
The newspaper said its own analysis suggested the amount Green’s family earned from BHS was more than the £571mln deficit, as measured on a buyout valuation.