British clothing chain Ted Baker, which recently filed for insolvency, will close 15 stores in the United Kingdom, resulting in the loss of about 245 jobs, administrators said, AFP reported.
Consultancy Teneo announced "the decision to close 11 Ted Baker stores in the UK", which "should result in the loss of around 120 jobs".
In addition, 25 jobs have been cut at the company's head office, the same source said. Before the administrators arrived, the owners of four more stores had told them to close, which would result in around 100 more redundancies.
Ted Baker, founded in 1987, declared bankruptcy in the UK at the end of March. The company has been in crisis for several years. It racked up losses and suffered a sexual harassment scandal involving founder Ray Kelvin that led to his resignation and that of the rest of the then-management team in 2019.
The clothing chain, owned through holding company NODL, was bought in 2022 for £211m by the US-based Authentic Brands Group (ABG), which owns sportswear brands such as Reebok and Juicy Couture.
"All of the closed stores are currently loss-making and have no prospect of returning to profitability," according to Teneo. Their closure is "necessary to ensure the business can generate profitable trading results in the future".
ABG "is currently in the process of finding a new operating partner for the retail and e-commerce business in the UK and across Europe", the firm said. / BGNES