Sir Geoff Mulcahy, the former chief executive of Woolworths, is mulling a bid to take over more than half of the struggling retailer’s high street stores.

Sir Geoff, who bought Woolworths as part of a consortium in 1982, has approached Deloitte, the administrator running the business, to buy around 500 of its 813 branches.

Sir Geoff, who is currently chairman of the British Retail Consortium, hopes to form a team to run the the company and pay off £380 million of debts.

Other companies including Iceland, the food retailer, are eyeing parts of Woolworths’ retail estate. The chain was placed in administration last month after a rescue deal fell through. Around 450 staff were made redundant last week.

Sir Geoff used the purchase of Woolworths as the first step in the creation of the Kingfisher retail empire, which included Comet, Superdrug and B&Q. Woolworths was demerged in 2001.

Woolworths’ wholesale distribution business Entertainment UK was placed in administration last month. The retail group’s publishing business 2Entertain, a joint venture with the BBC’s commercial arm BBC Worldwide, is not in administration.

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