ExCellar, the independent wine merchant owned by Simon Baile, the former managing director of Oddbins, has been placed into administration.

Stephen Hunt from insolvency firm Griffins was appointed as administrator at 11am yesterday morning.

Baile had bought five former Oddbins branches when the chain entered administration in May 2011, bringing the total number of stores to nine, but closed the East Sheen and Paris branches last year.

ExCellar had recently branched into food, with its Facebook page advertising cheese and charcuterie platters and evening meals at its Surbinton branch as recently as last week.

A winding up order brought by Stagecoach South Western Trains at the High Court was not granted yesterday because of the pending administration order.

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