House of Fraser to axe stores
House of Fraser to axe 31 stores and 6,000 jobs in battle to survive
DEVASTATED House of Fraser staff were left in tears on the shop floor yesterday after being told they may be losing their jobs.
The high street department store chain announced that it will shut 31 branches across the UK in an attempt to satisfy creditors and stave off collapse. The move will put 6,000 jobs at risk.
The company’s historic Glasgow store, where the business was founded 169 years ago, will remain open.
However, its Edinburgh store and shop on London’s Oxford Street are among those set to close.
Chief executive Alex Williamson said: ‘This is brutal, this is as tough as it gets.’
HOUSE of Fraser will all but disappear from traditional high streets after announcing the closure of half its shops, putting 6,000 jobs at risk.
The 169-year-old chain – which grew from a single outlet in Glasgow in 1849 – has pledged to axe 31 stores, including its London flagship in Oxford Street, in an effort to stave off collapse.
The flagship branch in Buchanan Street, Glasgow, will remain, with only one Scottish site – the store at the West End of Edinburgh’s Princes Street – to close.
The decision is another sign of the lastditch battle for survival by long-established names as the rise of internet shopping ravages high streets.
Chief executive Alex Williamson said: ‘The business has faced a tsunami of changing dynamics. This is brutal, this is as tough as it gets. We’ve not taken this decision lightly.
‘It’s very dramatic for people we care about a great deal, I find it personally very emo- tional. I’m not making this decision based on anything other than what I consider to be the best option for House of Fraser.’
The company owns 61 stores with 4.4million sq ft of retail space, the equivalent of 69 football pitches.
But as shopper numbers have dwindled, the cost of power and renting the firm’s often elegant Victorian buildings has become brutally high. Hikes to business rates have also taken their toll.
Staff due to see their stores close reacted with shock. Some at Edinburgh’s Princes Street store – where 127 jobs are at risk – said they only found out from news bulletins that it is expected to shut in early 2019.
The company’s Jenner’s store at the other end of Princes Street was spared, as was Loch Lomond Shores, along with the Highland House of Fraser in Inverness.
House of Fraser also plans to relocate its Baker Street HQ and Granite House office in Glasgow to new locations to help cut costs and ‘secure House of Fraser’s future’.
Bob Colquhoun, 86, started work as a 14-year-old in a draper’s display department to become assistant to the managing director of The House of Fraser Ltd.
Yesterday’s announcement left him saddened but grateful he experienced the 1960s heyday.
Mr Colquhoun, of Giffnock, Renfrewshire, said: ‘In those days, you could do no wrong. There was plenty of money about and no internet to compete with. Business was so good one year, my salary doubled.’ Now, he said: ‘The high street is toiling under pressure from the web.’ The company knew how to look after its bosses. When working in London, Mr Colquhoun enjoyed the luxury of a flat in Marble Arch.
The late Lord Fraser insisted on annual, glamorous, banquets with wives at Glasgow’s Central Hotel, attended by up to 700. The business is currently in negotiations on a so-called company voluntary agreement, which will give it more time to repay its debts in exchange for restructuring.
It must win approval from creditors owed at least 75 per cent of the company’s debt at a meeting on June 22. Sources said that if the rescue deal fails, the company will plunge into administration.
If it goes ahead, it will unlock a £70million investment from Chinese firm C.banner which would buy 51 per cent of it from current owner Sanpower Group, another Chinese business.
‘Toiling under pressure from the web’