Philip Day’s retailers Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) and Ponden Home in the UK recently collapsed into administration with 866 jobs axed and hundreds more under threat. A total of 64 stores—56 EWM and eight Ponden Home—will be permanently closed. The remaining 328 EWM and 65 Ponden Home stores will operate with COVID-19 restrictions, while a buyer is sought.

“Lockdown restrictions and low consumer confidence and footfall of core customer demographics, including senior shoppers and international tourists, had a significant impact on trading performance,” administrators FRP Advisory Group Ltd said in a statement.

“Regrettably, the impact of Covid-19 on the brands' core customer base and tighter restrictions on trading mean that the current structure of the businesses is unsustainable and has resulted in redundancies,” British media reports quoted the statement as saying.

EWM, a Carlisle, Scotland-based knitwear and homeware retailer, has 384 stores across the U.K., with 2,571 staff, while Ponden Home, which sells homeware and furniture, has 73 stores and 329 employees. Other subsidiaries of the EWM Group, including Jaeger and Peacocks, are not part of the administration, according to FRP.

Separately, the EWM Group has been granted a further two-week extension by the high court to continue discussions with potential suitors for its other brands Peacocks and Jaeger.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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