High street jobs lost as no buyer found for Oasis and Warehouse stores
Oasis and Warehouse have become the latest high street casualties of the coronavirus crisis after administrators were unable to find a buyer for the stores, resulting in 1,803 redundancies.
The retailer’s intellectual property assets and certain stock have been sold to Hilco Capital.
The group, which includes the Oasis, Warehouse and The Idle Man brands, was forced to close its 92 standalone stores and 437 concessions last month due to the coronavirus lockdown.
It stopped trading online on 22 April due to the “rising costs of fulfilling online orders and associated logistical challenges, after appointing Deloitte as administrator the previous week.
Around 200 people were made redundant immediately after the company fell into administration.
“As a result of this, and as it became clear that a sale of any part of the business as a going concern would not be possible, the decision was taken to accelerate a sale of some of the Group’s assets,” Deloitte said in a statement today.
Rob Harding, Joint Administrator at Deloitte, said: “Covid-19 has presented extraordinary challenges which have devastated the retail industry.
“It is with great sadness that we have to announce a sale of the business has not been possible and that we are announcing so many redundancies today. This is a very difficult time for the Group’s employees and other key stakeholders and we will do everything we can to support them through this.”