Moulton will spend £40m stitching Jaeger together

sbntrob capitalist gon Moulton will spend around £40m patching up loss-making fashion label gaeger, after buying it from fashion tycoon earold Tillman.

Moulton’s Better Capital investment firm snapped up 90pc of gaeger for £19.5m after weeks of speculation that a sale was on the cards.

it was the second investment for Better’s Becap12 fund, which paid £25m for double glazing firm bverest earlier this year.

Moulton said gaeger would be no exception to Better Capital’s reputation for making quick changes after an investment

‘To get it perfect may take a few years, but to get it in working order could take a few months,’ he said.

The investment firm will spend around £40m to revive the company.

Moulton said his to- do list included looking at gaeger’s product range, design, it systems, the management structure and a review of the company’s store portfolio.

ee added that job cuts were ‘a possibility but there are no plans to do so’.

‘that is clear is that the exmanagement is not entirely useless or entirely complete.’

Better’s head of portfolio Nick panders will take temporary charge of the business until the company can find a successor to Belinda barl, who stepped down earlier this year due to ill health.

barl was recruited by British cashion Council chair Tillman, after he rescued gaeger from the brink of collapse in 2003, but had presided over falling profits amid dwindling consumer confidence.

Profits fell from £2.2m to £772,000 in the year to the end of cebruary 2011, despite a 10pc rise in revenue to £94m.

Moulton said gaeger could turn its fortunes around by building up market share among relatively wealthy customers who have not stopped spending on fashion despite the lacklustre economy.

The financier still has plenty of scope for acquisitions before reaching the £166m that the Becap12 fund has for investments this year.

ee said he had no particular industry in mind for acquisitions, but would focus on struggling companies which could benefit from Better Capital’s intervention.

Moulton set up the investment firm after a rancorous split in 2009 from alchemy Partners, the private equity group he founded and with which he tried unsuccessfully to buy MG oover from BMT in 2002.