Internacionale hunting for sale to avoid closure

Internacionale, the fashion retailer specialising in women’s clothes, has officially entered administration today, with a sale being sought.

Earlier in the week we reported that the high street clothing chain was facing liquidation if it could not find a buyer in the near future. Today (28 February) it was announced that Internacionale has gone into administration while a new buyer is sought.

PwC’s Bruce Cartwright, Lyn Vardy and Toby Underwood have been appointed as joint administrators. The trio is planning an “orderly wind-down” of business but they have urged any parties that are interested in buying parts of the business to come forward.

Internacionale has 89 stores across the UK and PwC plans to keep these trading while the search for buyers continues. As a money-saving measure the company recently made 90 redundancies, mostly in its Glasgow-based head office. However, over 1,000 jobs still remain at risk if the sale of the fashion retailer is not completed.

PwC’s Bruce Cartwright said that despite the best efforts of everyone involved to try and find a solution to preserve the business, the decision was made to perform an orderly wind-down of the fashion retailer. The “fiercely competitive” nature of the retail sector was cited as a key reason for this course of action.

Cartwright continued by emphasising that “we welcome any approaches to purchase parts of the store portfolio and safeguard jobs. We intend to continue to trade over the coming weeks in order to sell as much of the retail stock as possible and maximise the return to creditors.”

However he did conclude by stating that if buyers cannot be found then “it is inevitable that redundancies and store closures will become necessary as the administration process continues.”

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Related information:
Profit from buying a distressed business

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