Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins owner Arcadia has reportedly gone into administration, putting 13,000 jobs at risk.
The retail giant has apparently hired administrators from Deloitte after reporting the pandemic “severely impacted” sales across the group.
And Arcadia’s stores will continue to trade as Deloitte considers all options available to the group, and all orders made over the Black Friday weekend will also be honoured, the administrators commented.
The group, which runs 444 stores in the UK and 22 overseas, said 9,294 employees are currently on furlough.
Ian Grabiner, the boss of Arcadia, said: “The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, including the forced closure of our stores for prolonged periods, has severely impacted on trading across all of our brands,” he said.
“Throughout this immensely challenging time our priority has been to protect jobs and preserve the financial stability of the group, in the hope that we could ride out the pandemic and come out fighting on the other side.
“Ultimately, however, in the face of the most difficult trading conditions we have ever experienced, the obstacles we encountered were far too severe.”
