IT is, quite literally, a rags to riches story.

Two brothers built up a huge fashion empire – after starting out selling clothes on a market stall in Huddersfield.

Over the years, Gurchait and Gurnaik Chima steered Bon Marché into becoming one of the leading lights of UK retailing, having been inspired by their father Parkash Singh Chima.

But now the future of the firm and its parent company Peacocks is under a shadow.

The present owner of clothing chains Peacocks and Bon Marché announced late on Monday it planned to place both businesses into administration.

The Peacock Group, which employs a combined 11,000 staff, said it made the decision after discussions with lenders over the future of the group broke down.

The parent company said it would seek a potential buyer for the Bon Marché business, which includes some 394 stores, but will appoint an administrator in the meantime.

Bon Marché is based at Liley Lane, Grange Moor, moving there in 2002 from its previous base in School Lane, Kirkheaton.

Hundreds of people work for the firm at its headquarters and thousands more in the hundreds of shops – which include one in New Street, Huddersfield.

A statement from The Peacock Group said it had been reviewing the future of the Bon Marché chain and its role within the group and decided to sell the business.

The group has entered “exclusive talks” with a potential buyer but said that to “protect” the business while the sale process completes it had filed an intention to appoint administrators.

Meanwhile, the wider group, which includes the larger Peacocks chain, said it would also appoint administrators after it failed to reach an agreement with its banks, which include Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays.

The Chima brothers, who founded the fashion chain Bon Marché, featured regularly in the Asian Rich List.

The Chima brothers – credited with a joint fortune of £50m – built up Bon Marché from a stall at Huddersfield open market in 1982.

They netted £9.5m when they sold the business to retail group Peacocks for £51.3m in July 2002.

Two years later, they paid an undisclosed sum for Amatexa, which makes garments in Romania and the Far East for Bon Marché and Peacocks.

The origins of the firm came from the brothers’ father, Mr Parkash Singh Chima, who died in February 2010, aged 86.

He lived in Kirkburton, where his greatest passion was his garden, where he grew herbs and vegetables which he personally distributed among relatives and friends.

Mr Chima had arrived in the UK in 1950 from the Punjab, India, and settled in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

He started going from door to door on his bicycle, selling nylons, shirts and other clothing that was in short supply in the post-war years to the local farming community.

He then developed the business into markets in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire – a formidable achievement for someone who had taught himself to read and to speak English, Punjabi and Urdu, having had no formal schooling.

He never missed a day at work and instilled the same work ethic in his sons Mohan, Gurchait and Gurnaik, who all left school and joined the thriving family business.

In 1982 he bought two retail clothing businesses called Wiltex and Hartley in partnership with his nephew Surjeet Khela. The companies had 26 indoor market locations across the north of England and Mr Chima moved to Huddersfield with Gurchait and Gurnaik, leaving Mohan to run the business in Ely.

In 1985 the family opened their first store under the Bon Marché label, in Doncaster, and that enterprise blossomed into more than 300 stores, with a turnover of more than £200m.

Mr Chima retired and left his two sons to run the business, before they sold to the Peacocks Group in 2002.

Bon Marché made its target market the middle-aged woman, specialising in jackets, blouses, jumpers and skirts in the most popular sizes, rather than operating in the riskier high fashion sector.

The firm combined quality merchandise with low prices to appeal to the mass market.

They had factories in the UK and across the world making garments for the racks and also used supplies from other companies.

Ten years ago the Chima brothers sold a 20% stake in Bon Marché to investment company Friends Ivory and Sinme Private Equity in a £41m deal. They initially retained 70% of the business but then sold it to Peacocks.