Thu, 06 Feb 2014 | ADMINISTRATION
Base Retail has brought in the administrators to its Base Menswear business, and is attributing the failure to extortionate rates and pressure on middle-market men's clothing.
Administrators at Portland are working on ascertaining the current level of debt and calculating what's available for payment that creditors might expect. Four of its stores – at Lakeside, Watford, Bromley and Luton - have closed and at least ten staff have been made redundant.
Its remaining stores, located in Basildon, Bluewater, Romford, Stratford and White City, are still trading as normal.
“The men’s business has been challenging with a capital ‘C’ for a number of years. We have seen our market diminish to a point where it’s become unsustainable. After poor Christmas trading, I had no choice but to take this action,” managing director Marc Granditer told Drapers.
While rents can be tricky to meet, the rates proved to be the real challenge, Mr Granditer said. “The absurd situation in some of our stores where we were paying twice as much rates as rent. It’s obscene.”
The failure of Base Menswear has not affected Base Childrenswear, which is registered as a separate company on Companies House. Mr Granditer intends for the restructuring to enable this more resilient aspect of Base Retail to continue, and focus efforts on the children’s clothing market in the future.
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