by business editor Trevor Sturgess

Thirteen Kent shops and dozens of jobs across the county are at risk after the Birthdays greetings card chain became the latest victim of the downturn to go into administration.

The retailer is sustaining annual losses of £7m and follows the likes of Zavvi, Woolworths, MFI, Whittard of Chelsea, Robert Dyas, Adams Childrenswear and Bay Trading into administration.

Birthdays is owned by Clinton Cards and has 332 stores nationwide, including 13 in Kent and Medway. More than 2,000 jobs are at risk.

The local branches are in Canterbury, Chatham, Gillingham, Hempstead Valley, Gravesend, Maidstone, Deal, Folkestone,Bexleyheath, Bromley, Sittingbourne, Orpington and Sidcup.

All branches are trading normally while administrators at Zolfo Cooper try to save the business.

Clinton Cards, the UK’s largest specialist retailer of greetings cards, soft toys and related products with692 shops and 6,200 staff,is not affected.

It bought Birthdays in December 2004 but the chain has made losses ever since. Clintons said sales performance had been improving, but it still it had to provide a significant amount of financial support.

Clintons said that following deterioration in the economy since last autumn, it saw little prospect of Birthdays generating a profit in the near future.

Half of all Birthdays stores were lossmaking and it was placing Birthdays into administration to protect the rest of the business.

Clintons founding chairman Don Lewin said: "Although this has been an extremely difficult decision, it is my genuine belief that there is a significant element of the Birthday’s business that will have a profitable and sustainable fufute and there are stil lopportunities to make it a success."