THE future of 500 North-East workers remained in the balance last night.
Staff at 25 Northern Electric stores across the region were sent home on Friday after the company went into administration.
Administrators Richard Fleming and Julian Whale, of KPMG Corporate Recovery, intended to close the stores for 72 hours, before announcing whether any of the units would be re-opened.
The deadline passed yesterday afternoon, but the expected announcement was put off and is expected today.
The stores under threat include seven in the Tees Valley - Darlington, Teesside Retail Park, Redcar, Bishop Auckland, Stockton, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool.
A spokeswoman for KPMG said there was a chance that some of the outlets could re-open, to be sold as going concerns.
The administrators were called in by the directors of Shop Electric Group plc, the holding company that owns Northern Retail Ltd, which trades as Northern Electric.
The group, based at Gateshead and with an annual turnover of £80m, is not owned by power supply company Northern Electric plc, which sold it in June last year.
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