Evans to exit the high street and Arcadia after £23m online rescue

ARCADIA’S administrators have sold the first of Sir Philip Green’s ailing brands, Evans, to City Chic Collective for £23m.

The Australian company has bought the Evans website, customer base and stock, but not its stores, which will disappear from the high street.

This follows other rescues of businesses in administration such as Coast and Karen Millen, which were sold to Boohoo as websites, while their physical shops were closed last year.

Evans, which started life in the Thirties and sells a range of sizes for women’s clothes and shoes, made £23m in the financial year to August. The wholesale arm delivered sales of £3m.

Insolvency specialists at Deloitte said its five stand-alone shops would continue to trade for now before they closed forever. The Australian firm is taking over some of its 25 staff. Chloe Collins, a retail analyst at Globaldata, said its physical branches lacked appeal, while the brand struggled to compete with strong online players in the plussize market such as Simply Be and Curvissa, as well as more inspiring plussize items from New Look, Asos and Next.

City Chic Collective, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, f i rst approached Arcadia about a deal before it collapsed this month. It has already sold some of its own wares within Evans shops previously. The administrators are still seeking buyers for Sir Philip’s other brands, including Topshop, for which “there have been significant expressions of interest”.

A string of suitors have been linked with prospective bids – under the code name Project Kane – including Next and Davidson Kempner Capital Management, as well as US retail powerhouse Authentic Brands, the owner of Forever 21 and New York department store brand Barneys. Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein has also made a late entry into the process.

Prior to collapsing, Arcadia declined a life line of £50m from Frasers Group, the parent of Sports Direct, which is still interested in the business.

It collapsed at the end of November with an estimated £350m deficit in its pension schemes, which have roughly 10,000 members. Its demise is the most high-profile collapse on the British high street since the pandemic started.