THE owner of Beales has praised its departing boss, who he says was forced to stand down because of health problems.

The Daily Echo revealed this week that former chief executive Tony Brown had been brought back to the top job at the department store chain.

Andrew Perloff, who bought the company for just £1.2million when it was heavily in debt in 2015, paid tribute to outgoing executive chairman Stuart Lyons.

“He was suddenly aware he needed a major operation which he would need considerable time to recuperate from,”he said.

“He felt that we would have needed an interim CEO anyway for possibly three or four months even if he was able to come back,” he said.

“We all wish him well for a speedy recovery.”

Mr Lyons, 73, was brought in when Mr Perloff took over Beales. He had chaired the Airsprung group and been chief executive of Royal Doulton, receiving the CBE for services to the china industry.

During his time at the Bournemouth-based chain, he led a Back to Beales marketing campaign, but also closed 10 loss-making stores and negotiated a company voluntary agreement (CVA) which allowed it to negotiate rent reductions for many of its stores.

Mr Perloff said: “He has done much to reorganise the group, especially with the CVA which was an exceptionally stressful period. We have come through it, we are making progress and hopefully it will be ongoing with Tony at the helm.”

Earlier this year, Mr Lyons said he was expecting the company to significantly reduce its losses in the current year but not yet return to profit.

Tony Brown, chief executive from 2008-13, was brought back to Beales this year as a non-executive director and returned to the top job after Mr Lyons’ illness.

He was responsible for buying 19 department stores from Anglia Regional Co-Operative Society in 2011 – a deal which Mr Perloff had said led to the Beales’ debt problems.

But Mr Perloff said: “You must remember times move on. At the time, we agreed it was a good deal but because it took so long to go through, the internet, the retail recession and the banking crisis all came at about the same time.”

He said he had been consulted about the deal at the time as a major shareholder.

“I wasn’t aware of how much trouble the Co-Op were in at the time and they were very favourable terms to Beales at the time,” he added.