Employees at a popular Watford department store could be made redundant after its parent company announced it would be reviewing its UK operations.

TJ Hughes confirmed it is looking at making staff cuts after turnaround investors Endless appointed a new chief executive yesterday.

Endless bought the company from Silverfleet Capital last month, and has now appointed retail guru Anthony Solomon to run its operations.

It is uncertain whether the Watford store, in The Parade, High Street, will be directly affected but redundancy consultation is ongoing company-wide.

A TJ Hughes spokesperson said: "Over the past year, TJ Hughes and Silverfleet have made no secret of the fact that trading conditions have been tough.

"Over the last three or four weeks however, they have been looking at things more closely."

The chain, which is Britain's biggest discount department store, is 100 years old next year and currently employs about 4,000 people throughout its 57 stores.

The spokesperson added: "We will be restructuring all areas of the business and part of that, as you would expect, is looking at redundancy options.

"As an overall percentage of the company, we hope the number of redundancies will be quite low."

The business, which has an annual turnover of £300m, specialises in home furniture, fashion, fragrance and cosmetics, and electrical appliances.