There’s a question mark over the future of another Crowborough town centre shop after its owners admitted its “last ditch” efforts to save it had failed.
The Original Factory Shop in the Fernbank Centre is one of 140 stores across the country that faces an uncertain future after Modella Capital put it into administration and began insolvency proceedings. The decision puts 1,220 staff, including those in Crowborough, at risk.
Also affected is Claire’s Accessories, which is also owned by Modella and which is also being put into administration. Between them the two chains have almost 300 stores across the country and employ more than 2,500 people.
Modella Capital, which owns both chains, said the retailers would enter insolvency proceedings across the UK and Ireland. The administration period would give them breathing space to find a new buyer. The investment firm has owned The Original Factory Shop since early last year.
Modella said tough trading conditions and “alarming” low Christmas trading left both in a “vulnerable” position.
“This has been a very tough decision,” said Modella. “We have worked intensively in an effort to save both businesses, having made last-ditch attempts to rescue them, but neither has a realistic possibility of trading profitably again.”
Modella said that the chains were “highly vulnerable” even before it bought them. It also blamed challenges including the climate on the high street, which it said “remains extremely challenging”, and government policy.
The two shops are the latest casualties of a tough trading environment which has seen high street sales fall as shoppers move online, ditching old favourites facing the high running costs of maintaining stores.
In Crowborough Santander closed last year and there had been fears for the future of WHSmith after the chain was sold. However, that appears to be been spared the axe and has been included in the firm’s new TG Jones rebranding. Worryingly, though, the TG Jones chain is also owned by Modella Capital.
“A combination of very weak consumer confidence, highly adverse government fiscal policies and continued cost inflation is causing many established and much-loved businesses to suffer badly,” Modella said.
The investment firm has become increasingly prominent on Britain’s high streets, having bought WH Smith’s high street chain last year and taken over arts and crafts retailer Hobbycraft a year earlier.