The Scottish birthplace of fashion icon Ted Baker has avoided further store closures following the announcement that 15 UK shops will shut with the loss of approximately 245 jobs.
Glasgow was not mentioned in the list released yesterday by Teneo Financial Advisory, which was appointed last month to oversee the administration of the company that holds the licence to trade as Ted Baker in the UK.
Founded in Glasgow in 1987, Ted Baker is now owned by Authentic Brands Group (ABG) of the US. The UK licence was held by No Ordinary Designer Label (NODL), which had about 975 employees across more than 80 shops and concessions prior to the closures announced yesterday.
READ MORE: Operator of Glasgow-founded fashion chain poised to collapse
Eleven stores will close by April 19, Teneo said, leading to 120 job losses. All 11 shops are currently loss-making and deemed to have "no prospect of being returned to profitability, even with material rent reductions".
"As such, their closure is believed to be a constructive and necessary step in ensuring the business can deliver a profitable trading performance in the future," administrators said.
The stores set to close within the next week include sites in Birmingham Bullring, Bristol, Bromley, Cambridge, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool One, London Bridge, Milton Keynes, Nottingham and Oxford. At the same time, approximately 25 head office workers will also be made redundant in a bid to cut central costs.
An additional four stores will close "in the coming weeks" after landlords served notice on the sites prior to insolvency, with roughly a further 100 jobs lost as a result. Two are in London, one in Bicester, and one in Manchester Trafford.
Though styled as "Ted Baker, London" with the majority of outlets in England, the business was founded in Glasgow in 1987 by former chief executive Ray Kelvin. Mr Kelvin resigned in 2019 amid allegations of inappropriate behaviour, since when the company has encountered a series of financial difficulties that left it less prepared than many to cope with the impact of Covid lockdown restrictions.
READ MORE: Ted Baker reveals £5m Brexit hit
New York-headquartered apparel and entertainment conglomerate ABG agreed a £211 million deal to buy Ted Baker off the London Stock Exchange in August 2022, after which it gave the licence to run its UK operations to NODL. A similar licence covering Europe was held by Dutch group AARC, which has been blamed for tipping the UK business into administration.
When NODL fell into administration last month, ABG said the "damage done" was "too much to overcome". This is said to have included failure by AARC to meet its promise to inject cash into the UK business.
"Despite our tireless efforts, the damage done during a period under AARC in which NODL built up a significant level of arrears was too much to overcome," ABG chief strategy officer John McNamara said at the time.
"We wish that there could have been a better outcome for the Ted Baker employees and stakeholders. It is hopefully some consolation for customers that NODL will continue to trade online and in stores."
READ MORE: Ted Baker will close these 15 stores across the UK
In January, Ted Baker closed its flagship Glasgow store in Princes Square shopping centre after 36 years of trading, referring customers to its nearby Buchanan Street store which remains open.
ABG is currently in the process of finding a new operating partner for the retail and e-commerce businesses in the UK and across Europe. Teneo said the store closures are not expected to hinder that process.
“Ted Baker is an iconic British brand with strong partners around the world," joint administrator Benji Dymant said. "These store closures, whilst with a regrettable impact on valued team members, will improve the performance of the business, as [ABG] continues to progress discussions with potential UK and European operating partners for the Ted Baker brand to bring the business back to health."
He added: "We would like to thank Ted Baker team members and partners for their ongoing efforts and support at this difficult time.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here