Mr Clinton Cards loses £500k as his second firm flops
THE boss who made Clinton Cards a household name before it went bust faces losing half a million pounds after his newest venture failed.
Five years after Clinton Cards tumbled into administration, Clinton Lewin’s gifts and cards firm iCandy has now gone under.
Lewin, who had the original firm named after him by his entrepreneur father in 1968, may now lose his investment in iCandy, which has 14 stores.
Yesterday, staff at four stores were told they were losing their jobs, as branches in Romford, Ilford, Bishop’s Stortford and St Albans closed their doors.
Administrators FRP Advisory were called in after tough High Street trading piled pressure on the business that Lewin founded five years ago.
Glyn Mummery, joint administrator, said: ‘ICandy has been a bold move for its founders who made a real success of braving regional high streets from its inception at the end of 2012 – just when many retailers had given up the ghost in the wake of the financial crisis.
‘After the demise of Clintons, his family gift card firm, Clinton Lewin took his experience and personal savings to help carve out a niche.’
Clinton Cards was founded in 1968 when Lewin’s father Don – a door-to-door salesman – opened a card shop in Epping, Essex, after borrowing £ 500 from a friend, and named it after his son. The firm grew to 800 shops and floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2004, when it was valued at about £150m.
However, the business then slumped and, with Clinton in charge, it sank into administration in 2012.
It was bought by US giant American Greetings and 350 shops were closed.
ICandy was founded after Clin- ton decided to venture out on his own following Clinton Cards’ demise, opening his first shop in Epping.
The chain expanded across the South East, with 14 shops and 79 staff in locations such as Bury St Edmunds, Chelmsford and Colchester. Yesterday, FRP blamed the collapse on a slowdown in consumer spending and a sharp rise in business rates which had increased pressure on cash flow.
FRP said it had spoken to a number of interested buyers and would continue to market the business and assets for sale while keeping ten shops open.
‘Our immediate priority is to assist staff who have lost their jobs with their applications to the redundancy payments service,’ said Mummery.
He said stores were hit by a fall in consumer spending due to higher fuel and food prices.
And he said a sharp rise in business rates had hit smaller shops, adding: ‘Many of the stores continue to trade well from desirable locations in the more thriving market towns of Essex, Hertfordshire and Suffolk, and they continue to capture the purses of shoppers looking to spend within the wider gifts market.’
FRP said total unsecured liabilities were expected to be about £2m, while the retailer booked revenues of £4.3m to the end of July last year.