A West Midlands-based high street bakery chain has gone into administration, with eight outlets closed and 42 jobs made redundant.

Cooks the Bakery, which sells freshly made sandwiches, baguettes and rolls across the Midlands and south of England, has shut down bakeries in Birmingham, Worcester and Coventry. It has kept a further eight stores open until the business can find a suitable buyer, with the assistance of administrators from ReSolve Partners.

Simon Harris, one of ReSolve’s partners, said: “It’s too early to say at the moment as to who has been interested in the potential buyout of the business. But as soon as we were appointed on 16 November, we decided to close the business’ loss-making stores and maximise those making a profit.”

Despite the company taking over more than 120 leasehold stores around five years ago after negotiating a deal with rival firm Three Cooks, the business has failed to keep many of these outlets open as the number fell to 80 in 2008. Employee figures in 2006 were around 900, in comparison to a mere 62 now hired by the company.

The bakery chain made a loss of nearly £594,000 in the year to 27 March 2010, after a small profit in 2009, according to the latest accounts filed at Companies House.

Revenue from outlets in Northfield, West Heath, Bromsgrove, Dudley, Halesowen, Kidderminster and Redditch, fell from £13.7m to £10.7m across the period.