COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

Arcadia, the owner of Top Shop and BhS, reported a 38% fall in annual profits to £133m and says it expects to close up to 260 stores in the next few years.

Arcadia boss Sir Philip Green told the BBC the closures would come as store leases came up for renewal.

It also reported same-store UK sales down by 1.8%.

The group, which owns Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, said it expected heavy discounts on the high street this Christmas.

Total sales at its 3,100 outlets worldwide were down by 3.4% and sales have worsened, falling 4.4% since the start of the new financial year.

Sir Philip told the BBC: "We have got - from my memory - 450 or 460 stores where leases expire in the next three years. And I think on our latest summary we will close more than half of those on lease expiry. So I would say, I would expect us to close 250, 260.

"Now, there may be other opportunities that turn up that we might want to open. But certainly, in terms of our existing portfolio, currently that's our thinking."

Sir Philip said he would attempt to renegotiate rent on these leases with the many landlords involved. The locations were across the UK, in towns that were no longer prime locations.

"In most of these locations, if we don't get more attractive terms, we don't want to stay," he said.

A total of 66 stores were closed in the past year.

Death knell tolls for BHS as Green puts stores up for sale

Sir Philip Green’s BHS could disappear from the high street after the billionaire owner revealed that the iconic department store chain is for sale.

The company has received approaches for the business, which has been losing money for the past few years.

Sir Philip’s Arcadia empire, which includes Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, would not name potential suitors, but retail experts suggest that Pep & Co, the discount fashion venture by the former Asda boss Andy Bond, is the frontrunner.

Other potential buyers include the rival discount fashion chain Primark, and the supermarkets Aldi and Lidl.

Whichever company is the buyer, experts believe it could spell the end of BHS’s 87 years on the high street.

flapdoodle wrote:Iconic?

Retailer BHS to go into administration - source with knowledge of plans

Department stores group BHS is expected to go into administration, possibly as early as Monday, a source with knowledge of the company's plans told Reuters on Sunday.

Administration would endanger nearly 8,000 jobs at the company and another 3,000 contractors working with the 88-year-old firm, which has 164 stores, and has been hit hard by intense competition in the retail sector.

In March, the group had won support from its creditors for a rescue plan to try to allow the retailer to stay in business thanks to big cuts in its rent bill.

The chain was bought in March 2015 by buyout firm Retail Acquisitions, a collection of little known investors.

Hundreds of BHS jobs at risk in Coventry and Warwickshire as firm files for administration



Hundreds of staff at BHS department stores in Coventry, Nuneaton, Stratford and Solihull face an uncertain future after the troubled chain filed for administration.

The move, which threatens almost 11,000 jobs across the country, comes after a period of instability as the business struggled to cope with mounting debts of more than £1.3billion, including a pension fund deficit of £571million.

The retailer sent a letter to staff, which said it will call in administrators after being unable to secure a rescue package to save the 88-year-old business.

BHS was bought last year by a consortium called Retail Acquisitions for £1 from retail entrepreneur Sir Philip Green.
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Sir Philip is reported to have offered £80m towards the cost of BHS pensions, though the regulator could still pursue further payment from the retail billionaire.

Sir Philip bought BHS for £200m in 2000.

Rival retailer Sports Direct is understood to want to some of BHS’s 164 stores, but will only do so if it does not have to take on any pension liabilities.

The collapse of BHS would be the biggest retail failure since Woolworths folded in 2008 with the loss of almost 30,000 jobs.

Retail experts said BHS has suffered from years of under-investment, leaving its range and estate looking tired.

The fashion and homeware chain was thrown a lifeline last month when creditors backed two company voluntary arrangements (CVA) designed to revive its ailing business by cutting the cost of its leases and preventing widespread store closures.

The firm had put forward CVA proposals which asked landlords to slash the rents by 50 per cent or 75 per cent on 47 stores.

It has also told landlords it needed rents to be reduced “substantially” on 40 more stores.

However, the deal hit problems last week when a £60m loan, making up a crucial part of the deal, had not been secured.

Joe Rundle, head of trading at ETX Capital, said: “BHS may have been another Woolworths that struggled to adapt to the new retail world.

“But the same pressures that squeezed the life out of BHS are being felt across the UK retail sector today.”

At the beginning of March BHS announced it would axe 150 staff from its head office and 220 from its shops in a move to cut costs.

BHS currently operates a store in the Precinct Shopping Centre, in Coventry, with other Warwickshire stores in Nuneaton and Stratford, as well as one in nearby Solihull.

BHS paid more than £25m to owner in 13 months before administration

More than £25m was paid from BHS to its owner, Retail Acquisitions, in the 13 months between the department store’s sale and it collapsing into administration, the Guardian understands.

Sources with knowledge of BHS’s finances say that the payments to Retail Acquisitions included £2.8m in management fees, £2.1m in salaries and wages, £11m in legal and professional fees and £10m in interest payments.

The man behind Retail Acquisitions is Dominic Chappell, a former racing driver who has been declared bankrupt twice. Chappell owns 90% of Retail Acquisitions, which bought BHS for £1 from Sir Philip Green in March 2015.

The payments include a £8.4m loan to Retail Acquisitions, taken out in March 2015, which has already been reported by the Guardian. This is part of the professional fees.

Some £7m of the £10m of interest payments is understood to have been passed on to the investment firm Grovepoint for a loan taken out to support BHS.

The payments will raise questions about the management of BHS over the last year.

Chappell did not return calls or messages seeking comment on the payments.

The pensions regulator has confirmed that it is investigating BHS, suggesting that it is considering whether to force former owner Green to contribute to the company’s £571m pension deficit.

Retail tycoon Sir Philip Green is facing calls to give up his knighthood if he does not pay back dividends received from BHS when he owned the stores chain.

Pensions Lifeboat Faces £300m BHS Rescue Bill

Britain's pensions lifeboat will confirm to parliament next week that it faces a £300m bill to cover the retirement funding costs of thousands of BHS pensioners.

Sky News has learnt that the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has calculated that the retailer's retirement schemes will require top-up funding of between £250m and £300m – one of the largest such deficits in the organisation's history.

Westminster sources said the figure was likely to be provided by Alan Rubenstein, the PPF's chief executive, when he gives evidence to a joint session of the Work and Pensions and Business, Innovation and Skills select committees on Monday.

In a development which is expected to add further to the controversy surrounding the collapse of BHS, sources said that a smaller pension scheme for senior BHS staff had been left more adequately funded than the retailer's principal scheme.

The senior management scheme may also be transferred to the PPF although insiders suggested that that was likely to be a temporary move.

In total, BHS's pension schemes have approximately 20,000 members, with 11,000 jobs at risk from the company's collapse into administration.

The PPF is sponsored by the Government but is funded through a levy on other defined benefit pension schemes, and steps in to protect the retirement benefits of insolvent companies' employees.

The PPF's £300m bill relating to BHS is just over half the £571m estimated cost of transferring the high street chain's pension schemes to an insurance company.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) is likely to be closer to the figure that the Pensions Regulator would ultimately seek to extract from Sir Philip Green, BHS's former owner, and other BHS stakeholders if they are deemed to have left its pension schemes underfunded.