The family behind River Island, a well-known High Street fashion brand, is creating a radical rescue plan that could put a significant number of shops and jobs at risk. The owners of the chain have hired consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to develop a formal restructuring plan.<\/p>\n
River Island is one of the best-known clothing chains in Great Britain, operating around 230 shops across the country and employing approximately 5,500 people. The company was previously known as Lewis and Chelsea Girl and was founded in 1948 by Bernard Lewis, taking on its current brand name four decades later.<\/p>\n
Consideration of River Island Clothing CO’s accounts for the 52 weeks ending on December 30, 2023, show that the company made a loss of \u00a333.2 million. Sales during the year fell by more than 19% to \u00a3578.1 million.<\/p>\n
A restructuring plan is a legal proceeding that enables companies with financial difficulties to renegotiate with creditors and landlords to avoid bankruptcy proceedings. In recent years, it has been used by companies such as the Casual Dining Chain Prezzo and Hobbycraft. If a restructuring plan is progressed, it could be announced within weeks.<\/p>\n
This weekend, it was unclear how many shops and jobs are threatened by a formal rescue deal. However, the company’s most recent accounts at Companies House warned about a range of financial and operational risks to its business, including pressure from a highly competitive and changing retail environment, combined with increasing economic uncertainty.<\/p>\n
The company stated that "the market for retailing fashion clothing is rapidly changing with customer preferences for more diverse, more convenient, and faster shopping trips and with increasing competition, especially in the digital arena." The most significant business risks for the group are the pressure of a strongly competitive and changing retail environment, combined with increasing economic uncertainty.<\/p>\n
In January, it was reported that River Island had hired Alixpartners, a consulting firm, to work on cost reductions and profit improvement. The role of Alixpartners has now been taken over by PWC. Retailers have bitterly complained about the effects of tax changes announced in the budget last autumn, which has led to a number of well-known chains being forced to seek new owners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to River Island’s Rescue Plan The family behind River Island, a well-known High Street fashion brand, is creating a radical rescue plan that could put a significant number of shops and jobs at risk. The owners of the chain have hired consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to develop a formal restructuring plan. Background of River<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12754,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12752\/revisions\/12754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}