Harrogate’s Monsoon Accessorize store has been saved despite the company announcing a string of store closures after falling into administration.
Monsoon brought in administrators late on Tuesday before being bought out by Adena Brands Ltd through a pre-pack deal which was announced this morning.
Administrators FPR Advisory secured the deal with Adena, which is owned by Monsoon’s founder Peter Simon, which will see 450 jobs transferred over to the company.
But, 35 stores will still close across the UK and 545 staff will be made redundant.
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Harrogate’s Monsoon Accessorize store on James Street is not included on the list of closures released today.
The news comes as non essential retail, such as clothes stores, will reopen on Monday after lockdown is eased.
Mr Simon has promised to inject £15 million into Monsoon so it can continue trading and will work with administrators to negotiate leases on 162 stores and secure more than 2,300 retail jobs.
Tony Wright, joint administrator and partner at FRP, said:
“We had to move quickly and decisively to secure the future of Monsoon and Accessorize, as many jobs as possible and the presence of these two iconic brands on the UK high street. After assessing a range of options this deal achieves those goals with least disruption to the business in an already challenging retail environment.
“We are now committed to working with Adena Brands as they enter talks with landlords to agree future terms across their store portfolio and look to transfer more jobs to the buyer. We’ll also be working with the Redundancy Payments Service to support all affected employees through this difficult time.”
