High Street retailer British Home Stores (BHS) has filed for administration, putting 164 shops and almost 11,000 jobs at risk.
The administrators Duff & Phelps will now try to find a buyer for all or part of the 88-year old business, but in the meantime BHS will continue to trade.
They said BHS had "no alternative but to put the group into administration".
If a buyer is not found, it would be the biggest High Street collapse since Woolworths.
"The group has been undergoing restructuring and, as has been widely reported, the shareholders have been in negotiations to find a buyer for the business," administrators Philip Duffy and Benjamin Wiles, of Duff & Phelps, said in a statement.
"These negotiations have been unsuccessful," they said.
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11,000
employees
164
stores across the UK
-
£1.3bn - total debt
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£571m - pension deficit
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1928 - the year BHS opened its first store, in Brixton, London
BHS is "very unlikely to meet all contractual payments" as a result of its lower than expected cash balance, the administrators said.
"The group will continue to trade as usual whilst the administrators seek to sell it as a going concern," they added.
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