Clinton Cards collapses into administration
CLINTON CARDS, the UK’s largest specialist greeting cards retailer, has been placed into administration by its largest supplier, putting more than 8,000 jobs at risk.
Restructuring firm Zolfo Cooper were called in as administrators yesterday after Clinton’s banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, sold the company’s £35m of loans to US card retailer American Greetings.
Rather than extending waivers granted by the banks, American Greetings decided to enforce the loan, pushing Clinton into collapse.
American Greetings, which has around $25m of unsecured exposure to Clintons, said yesterday the retailer had repeatedly defaulted on payments. It now expects to recover some of those losses. Zolfo’s Peter Saville said Clintons had faced “challenging” trading conditions, particularly in the Birthdays subsidiary which has cost the business more than £130m since its purchase in 2004. Zolfo said the 628 Clintons and 139 Birthdays stores will continue to trade as normal as it searches for a buyer but warned that a number of stores are likely to be closed.
ADVISERS
PETER SAVILLE
ZOLFO COOPER
Peter Saville, Simon Freakley and Anne O’Keefe, three partners at Zolfo Cooper, were appointed as joint administrators over Clinton Cards yesterday. It has been a busy year for the restructuring firm, which has been called in to handle several well-known high street names in the past year. In May last year, Zolfo was appointed as administrator to womenswear chain Jane Norman, which was sold to Edinburgh Wollen Mill, and more recently was involved in the rescue of toy-maker Hawkins Bazaar. Saville, who joined Zolfo in 1995, has been lead administrator on a number of retail deals including greeting cards group Celebrations in 2009 and fashion house Hardy Amies in 2008. Savills said yesterday he remained confident that Clintons remained “an attractive proposition” for potential buyers.