JD Sports, the renowned UK-based sports fashion retailer, has pulled out of the rescue talks on taking over the ailing fashion retailer Debenhams.
The collapse of Arcadia Group, the biggest concession operator in Debenhams, seems to be the biggest factor in JD Sports’ decision to pull out.
And with this, the 242-year-old Debenhams is now on the verge of closing down.
The administrators have announced that the liquidation process has already started though the stores will remain open till all the stocks are cleared.
The collapse of Arcadia Group had already put around 13,000 jobs at risk and now with Debenhams also going down, 12,000 more jobs are in danger.
Also Read: Arcadia finally collapses into administration; 13,000 jobs to be hit
The mighty fall of Debenhams seems to have come at a wrong time especially with Christmas sales picking up in the country.
In a tweet, Lucy Powell, MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Business and Consumer, has urged the Government to make a plan to support all the people affected by the collapse of both Arcadia and Debenhams.
The news from Arcadia and Debenhams this morning is devastating for thousands of employees. I told @BBCNews this morning that the government must set out what they will do to support them – including pressing Philip Green to do the right thing and plug the Arcadia pension deficit pic.twitter.com/RGqeprqlcV
— Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) December 1, 2020
Meanwhile, Sir Ian Cheshire, Chairman of Debenhams, told BBC that he is ‘desperately sorry about all the people who have been affected.
