News: Peacocks Parkgate store closes

The sale of troubled clothing chain Peacocks has led to the closure of the Rotherham outlet at Parkgate Shopping.

The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group stepped in yesterday to save 6,000 retail jobs after agreeing to buy Peacocks for an unclosed sum.

Peacocks called in the administrators in January suffering from a decline in consumer spending due to the tough economic conditions and a surplus of stores and unsustainable capital structure that led to the business becoming financially unviable.

The deal included 388 stores and concessions, as well as the business' headquarters and logistics functions in Wales. The remaining 224 stores were not included in the sale and have ceased trading with immediate effect, resulting in 3,100 redundancies.

Administrators, KPMG confirmed that the Rotherham store was not part of the sale.

Philip Day, the chairman and chief executive of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group did say that: "We do hope that there will be scope to save more jobs and stores from those being forced to close now due to performance issues and overhead pressures."

Chris Laverty, joint administrator and restructuring partner at KPMG, added: "Today's deal ensures the continued trading of a well known name on the high street. While it is unfortunate that redundancies have been necessary, we are pleased that we have been able to preserve the majority of the business and jobs."

The Parkgate unit also included a Bon Marche concession. Bon Marche was part of the Peacocks group but was bought for an undisclosed sum by private equity group Sun European Partners in January. The Bon Marche store in Rotherham town centre continues to trade.

Positive news for Parkgate Shopping is the forthcoming arrival of Poundland, who are moving into the former John Peters unit.

This follows from the announcement that childcare retailer, Kiddicare has taken the lease of the 45,000 sq ft former Best Buy unit on the retail park.

Peacocks website
Parkgate Shopping website

Images: peacocks.co.uk