Topshop, Dorothy Perkins goes into administration risking 13, 000 jobs

Sir Philip Green’s retail empire Arcadia owner of Topshop, Burton, Dorothy Perkins has gone into administration risking 13, 000 jobs, after failing to secure extra funding to pay debts after sales slumped during the second pandemic lockdown.

The group which runs 444 stores in the UK and 22 overseas, said 9,294 employees are currently on furlough.

“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. It marked an incredibly as day for the group. 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. Unfortunately in the face of the most difficult trading conditions we have ever experienced the obstacles we encountered were far too severe”, Ian Grabiner, the boss of Arcadia.

The High Street giant has called in administrators from Deloitte after the pandemic “severely impacted” sales across the group, as redundancies would be announced immediately.

All orders made over Black Friday weekend will also be honoured according to the administrators.

Fashion retailer Boohoo is seen a potential buyer for some of Arcadia Group’s big name brands such as Topshop. In the past it has bought struggling brands Oasis, Warehouse, Karen Millen and Coast.