One staff member told The Courier yesterday the employees were informed last Thursday about the pending closure and were encouraged "to look for another job elsewhere".

The imminent closure follows similar developments in other Victorian provincial cities with the Shepparton Billy GuyattChr(39)s store also closing its doors this month.

The Ballarat employee said confusion surrounded the reasons for the closure.

"Nobody is telling us anything so all we can go on is rumours," he said.

"We have heard that Betta Electrical has bought the shop and will take over the reigns from next Wednesday.

"So we donChr(39)t know if we will have a job on Wednesday or not."

The staff member said between 15 and 17 people worked at the Ballarat store on the corner of Dana St and Doveton St Sth.

He said the store was running low on stock which was not being replaced.

Betta Electrical failed to return calls to yesterday.

It is understood the Harvey Norman group has also been buying up many of the Billy GuyattChr(39)s stores in line with plans to open up more outlets across the nation.

The Billy Guyatts name is owned by the Vox Retail Group which also has the Archie Martin and Chandlers stores under its umbrella.

However, last August the group announced it had sold 65 stores across Australia to Betta Stores Ltd.

"This sale is central to the restructure process commenced in August 1999 and means that our portfolio of 119 stores today, will be reduced by 36 later this year," Vox chief executive officer Andrew Griffiths said at the time.

"We expect the level of job redundancies to be kept to a minimum, however where redundancies are unavoidable, employees will receive their full entitlements."

He said the company expected its re-organisation process to be completed by June 30 this year.