The restructuring firm Hilco Capital has acquired clothing brands Oasis and Warehouse. The deal, however excludes their 92 standalone stores and concessions across outlets including Debenhams, House of Fraser and Sainsbury’s. Forced to shutter both their brick-and-mortar sites and online shopping business, retailers expect to cut over 1,800 jobs.
"Covid-19 has presented extraordinary challenges, which have devastated the retail industry. It is with great sadness that we have to announce a sale of the business has not been possible and that we are announcing so many redundancies today. This is a very difficult time for the group’s employees and other key stakeholders and we will do everything we can to support them through this," said Rob Harding, Joint Administrator, Deloitte.
Sofie Willmott, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, commented: “Like the Gordon Brothers’ rescue deal for Laura Ashley, investment firm Hilco’s purchase of the Oasis and Warehouse brands excludes their store portfolios, bringing yet more bad news for retail landlords that have already been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. With the online channel accounting for almost 30% of UK clothing & footwear spend in 2019 and the shift to digital being accelerated in 2020 due to non-essential store closures, companies buying up retailers are not interested in their physical estate. Oasis and Warehouse operated around 90 standalone branches – a far smaller estate than many of their competitors – but were present in over 400 department stores which will leave struggling retailers like Debenhams and House of Fraser with gaping holes in their womenswear stock when they are able to reopen. With more clothing specialists at risk of collapse over the next few months as demand for fashion items remains depressed, department store retailers are at risk of losing more of their third-party brands.”
