THE bid to take over Beales for just £1.2million is set to go ahead.

The Bournemouth-based department store chain has been taken off the Stock Exchange and returned to private hands by property entrepreneur Andrew Perloff.

Mr Perloff told the Daily Echo last month that he was not an ‘asset stripper’ and did not plan widespread store closures.

English Rose, a company set up by Mr Perloff, has had its takeover offer accepted in respect of 63 per cent of Beales’ shares.

It has now made its offer unconditional, waiving its original acceptance condition of not less than 75 per cent in nominal value of Beales’ shares.

A statement announcing the change said: “Beales’ shareholders who have not yet accepted the offer are urged to do so without delay.”

English Rose had offered shareholders 6p per share – 48 per cent less than they were trading for ahead of the announcement.

Although the deal valued Beales at £1.2m, Mr Perloff said he had spent millions ahead of the takeover. He and his family already controlled almost 30 per cent of the enquiry, had taken on a loan on which Beales owed £1m and bought the freehold to 11 shops.

Beales’ board had recommended Mr Perloff’s offer despite branding it “disappointing”, warning that it had “explored other realistic alternatives” and might otherwise be unable to meet its financial commitments.

Mr Perloff, a high-profile Ukip donor who had a high-profile run-in with the Beales board last year, told the Echo last month: “We’re going to do a review of the whole business when we get in full control.

“We’ve seen the management’s existing plan and we’re going to partially work on that and have a look to see which stores may be unviable.

“I think it’s very few. It may be that one or two out of 29 are not viable; we don’t know the number. It may be that there are none we have to look at.”