The high street faced fresh turmoil yesterday as an important supplier to Argos, the catalogue shop, was placed in administration. The collapse heaps further pressure on Home Retail Group, the parent of Argos, which also owns Homebase, the troubled DIY chain.

Meristem Holdings, a maker of flatpack furniture that is responsible for £80 million of the group's annual sales, mainly through Argos, has entered administration.

A spokesman for Home Retail Group said that Argos held some stock and that the financial impact of the supplier's failure depended on the outcome of Meristem's administration. Home Retail Group is searching for other suppliers to fill the gap. Meristem employs 270 workers in Glastonbury, Somerset.

It also emerged yesterday that Liberty International, Britain's biggest shopping centre owner, doubled its provision for tenant failures yesterday in an ominous indication of its expectations for the new year. The owner of Lakeside Shopping Centre, Essex, and MetroCentre, Gateshead, has put aside £10.2 million, up from £4.5 million last year.

David Fischel, the chief executive of Liberty, said: “We must recognise that consumer confidence is at all-time lows and there is a degree of nervousness among retailers about quarter four and the Christmas period.”

The move does not bode well for retailers who, after failing to find last-minute salvation at Christmas, may find themselves unable to pay the first quarterly rent demand from landlords.

One restructuring specialist told The Times: “We should be OK until Christmas but from January we will see the highest number of administrations in living memory.”

Mr Fischel said that Liberty would support tenants struggling to pay rent. “It is a question of working with your retailers,” he said. “Where you believe those difficulties are temporary, you will do what you can to make sure they maintain occupancy.”

Landlords have been criticised by retailers for not moving from quarterly to monthly rent, a practice that retail chiefs describe as medieval. They complain that the quarterly system disrupts cashflow and can jeopardise sound businesses.

The administrator of Rosebys, the textile retailer that collapsed in September, confirmed a 310 new redundancies, taking the total to 1,295. Duvetco, which is owned by Edinburgh Woollen Mill, agreed yesterday to buy 77 of Rosebys 280 stores, saving 495 jobs. A further 59 stores shut their doors yesterday, bringing the total of closures to 201.

Howard Smith, the joint administrator from KPMG, said: “Clearly, it is unfortunate that further redundancies have been unavoidable. But in difficult trading conditions, the sale of a number of stores has been secured, which will safeguard many jobs and help achieve a return for creditors.”

Rosebys, like MFI, the failed furniture store, was hit by the collapse in the property market.

Less than ideal

Ideal Shopping Direct, the television shopping retailer, issued its second profit warning in two months and acknowledged that it had written off £600,000 locked in a failed Icelandic bank. It said that revenue for the seven weeks from September 7 was 10 per cent down on last year, which meant that turnover for the second half was “significantly short of management expectation”.

The company, which operates channels including Ideal World and Create and Craft, said that it expected its cash balance to be £9 million at the end of the year. Shares closed up 1.5p, or 3.5 per cent, at 45p.

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