Arcadia to shut 31 stores, Outfit chain is axed

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 19, 2021

More bad news for Arcadia staff came on Tuesday as it emerged that the company’s administrators are closing the 21-store Outfit chain along with 10 other shops. All Outfit stores are shut due to the UK lockdown and will close for good by the end of this month, with the loss of over 700 jobs. 

Outfit, which operates out-of-town stores selling all of the other Arcadia brands under one roof, was always seen as one of the more vulnerable parts of Philip Green’s retail empire.

The latest closures and job losses bring the number of Arcadia redundancies to around 1,000 this year alone. All of the 714 Outfit staff are currently furloughed.

Arcadia has been closing stores across its chains in the past couple of years and operated around 444 shops when it went into administration last year, leaving it with around 13,000 direct employees.

The results of the Arcadia auction are expected to be announced later this month with Evans having been the only business to be ‘rescued’ so far, although its purchase by Australia’s City Chic still means all of its stores closing.

The deadline for Arcadia bids was Monday this week, with the timing of the Outfit news suggesting that the chain attracted little interest from bidders said to include Next and its financial partner, Authentic Brands Group/JD Sports, Frasers and Boohoo.