Convenience store chain McColl’s have confirmed the company has gone into administration.

The company, which employs around 16,000 people, were working with advisers to find a buyer or a third party willing to inject fresh funding.

The retailer has a number of stores across West Dunbartonshire and Helensburgh including branches in Glasgow Road, Lomond Drive and High Street in Dumbarton, and West Princes Street and Churchhill Square in Helensburgh.

However, McColl’s said discussions with its lenders collapsed on today as creditors refused to extend a deadline for the retailer to find more cash.

McColl’s will apply to the court later today to appoint the administrators.

The company said in a statement: “In order to protect creditors, preserve the future of the business and to protect the interests of employees, the board was regrettably therefore left with no choice other than to place the company in administration, appointing PriceWaterhouseCoopers as administrators, in the expectation that they intend to implement a sale of the business to a third-party purchaser as soon as possible.”

Shares on the stock market have been suspended.

Earlier this morning supermarket chain Morrisons proposed a last-minute rescue deal for McColl's to "save as many stores and jobs as possible".