Arcadia is cutting 170 jobs at its main offices a day after Sir Philip Green’s retail empire avoided collapse by securing backing for a rescue restructure.
It is understood that the jobs are to go at the head offices of a number of the group’s brands which include Topshop, Topman, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Burton and Dorothy Perkins.
The cuts come on top of about 1,000 shopfloor jobs which are set to go after Arcadia staved off collapse on Wednesday by securing creditor support for a rescue plan that involves the closure of about 50 stores.
Landlords of the group’s 570 UK standalone stores approved the plan, averting a slump into administration that would have put a further 17,000 jobs at risk. A redundancy consultancy process, likely to last at least a month, began on Wednesday, after a proposal involving seven insolvency processes called company voluntary arrangements (CVAs) was approved by creditors.
“Following yesterday’s CVA vote, as outlined, the group are proposing to make some structural changes in order to support and deliver the turnaround plan,” said Arcadia.
One head office worker who was told on Thursday that she is being made redundant said the announcement had come as a shock. “Everybody was looking forward to the results of the CVA. People were feeling positive about it. I thought it was a pause button that would give me a job for a little while longer. At the back of my mind I thought this is how it might end up but I didn’t think it would be today.”
Miss Selfridge’s 150-strong head office team had already feared for their future as they are based in the former head office of BHS, the now collapsed department store once owned by Arcadia, under a temporary lease.
Arcadia had already confirmed plans to close Miss Selfridge’s flagship London store alongside at least 25 store closures for the brand and its sister label Evans, as the property arms of Miss Selfridge and Evans are set to be put into administration in the near future.
Those closures come on top of an exit from 23 shops and rent cuts of up to 50% on almost 200 more. The CVA includes the closure of about six Miss Selfridges.
The group is also closing its 11 US Topshop stores and has closed all but one of its remaining Australian stores in recent weeks.
Green admitted on Thursday his retail chains had not moved quickly enough to adapt to the changing high street.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the former billionaire vowed to “get to work, grasp this new marketplace and get on with the job” to get Arcadia back on track.
Green said: “The marketplace… has fundamentally changed forever. Whether we haven’t changed quickly enough or we had too many shops or whatever, I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. The answer is you can’t get it all right. For a long time the company made a lot of money. Literally only in the last couple of years it fell off.”
The entrepreneur said the British public did not trust him because the media “make them all fucking jealous, it’s quite basic. These people writing all this shit couldn’t spell 50 quid. They all get jealous. The fact that someone can actually write out a cheque and writes one out, people don’t like it.”
