A CLOTHING retail chain based in Huddersfield faces an uncertain future today.
Peacock Group, owner of clothing retailers Peacocks is in talks with a potential buyer for its Bon Marché chain.
At the same time, the group said it intended to appoint administrators to protect the group and Bon Marché until the sale process was completed.
The move comes after the breakdown of talks with lenders and means about 9,000 jobs are in jeopardy.
Bon Marché has its distribution base at Grange Moor and a store at New Street in Huddersfield. Cardiff-based Peacocks has a store in the town at the Piazza Centre.
The group said that it was taking the difficult step of appointing administrators to Peacocks in order to protect the business.
It said directors and their advisers had been in talks about restructuring the business with the group’s lenders, but said the talks had ended with no agreement reached.
Discussion with other potential investors were continuing and to protect the business while those talks progressed, the directors of the Peacock Group have filed a notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator.
Existing management remain in place as an administrator has not been appointed.”
In a second statement Peacock Group said it planned to sell its Bon Marché stores, saying: “The board of the Peacock Group and its advisers has been reviewing the future of its Bon Marché business and its role within the group for some time.
“Following this careful and thorough review, the board believes Bon Marché will be better positioned under different ownership and is in advanced and exclusive discussions with a potential purchaser.”
Peacocks lifted same-store sales by 17% over Christmas and continues to trade profitably. But independent advisors were recently asked to prepare a review of the group’s finances, which include £240m of debt.
Bon Marché was founded by the late Parkash Singh Chima, who arrived in the UK from India in 1950 and settled in Cambridgeshire. He started out as a door-to-door salesman on a bicycle, selling clothing to the local farming community.
In 1982, he and his family moved to Huddersfield and began selling clothing from market stalls. Their first Bon Marché store was opened in Doncaster in 1985. Mr Chima ran the business with sons Gurchait and Gurnaik and in 2002 they sold the company to the Peacocks Group.
The enterprise grew to encompass more than 300 stores with annual turnover of more than £200m.
Gift retailer Past Times – which has a shop on New Street in Huddersfield town centre – fell into administration yesterday and confirmed 507 staff were made redundant before the move.
The private equity-owned group, which last week shut 46 stores and 72 temporary stores, said KPMG had been appointed as administrator to the loss-making business following weak trade.
The remaining business, comprising 51 stores and 500 employees is continuing to trade under the control of the administrators in the short term with an “orderly wind down” planned in the event that a sale cannot be sealed.
