Arcadia parent company of Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins, Evans and other high street chains has collapsed into administration.
Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, which has 444 stores across the UK, announced Monday evening that it has hired administrators from Deloitte after pandemic “severely impacted” sales. This puts 13,000 jobs at risk, redundancies not have yet been announced. Administrators say stores will reopen on Wednesday and stores will continue to trade for the time being.
A statement from Arcadia’s chief executive Ian Grabiner said: “This is an incredibly sad day for all of our colleagues as well as our suppliers and our many other stakeholders. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, including the forced closure of our stores for prolonged periods, has severely impacted on trading across all of our brands. Throughout this immensely challenging time, our priority has been to protect jobs and preserve the financial stability of the group in the hope that we could ride out the pandemic and come out fighting on the other side. Ultimately however, in the face of the most difficult trading conditions we have ever experienced, the obstacles we encountered were far too severe.”
Administration gives Arcadia breathing space from creditors, like landlords for its shops or clothing suppliers, while a buyer is sought for all or parts of the company. Arcadia executives still hold day-to-day control over the business.
Matt Smith, joint administrator at Deloitte, said: “We will now work with the existing management team and broader stakeholders to assess all options available for the future of the group’s businesses. It is our intention to continue to trade all of the brands, and we look forward to welcoming customers back into stores when many of them are allowed to reopen.”
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