Arcadia sells Evans brand to City Chic for 23 million pounds

Administrators to Arcadia Group have sold the Evans brand, e-commerce and wholesale business to rival City Chic Collective Limited for a cash consideration of approximately 23 million pounds.

The deal will see omnichannel retailer City Chic acquire the Evans brand and intellectual property, customer base and inventory, but not its store network. Those stores will continue to trade for the time being, administrators said.

The transaction is expected to complete on 23 December 2020.

Established in the UK in 1930 Evans is a specialty retailer in plus-size apparel and footwear. In the year to August, its website had 19 million visits and generated approximately 23 million pounds, while the wholesale business delivered sales of approximately 3 million pounds.

Listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, City Chic also specialises in plus-size women’s apparel, footwear and accessories. It operates primarily through the online channel in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and the US, as well as through a store network in ANZ and wholesale and marketplace partnerships in the US, UK and Europe.

It comes after Arcadia, whose portfolio includes Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins, called in administrators from Deloitte at the end of November after its trading was “severely impacted” by the pandemic. The move put some 13,000 jobs at risk.

Administrators said Monday that the process to secure new owners for the other Arcadia Group brands is ongoing and that there have been “significant expressions of interest for all brands”, with an update to be given in the new year.

Photo credit: Evans, Facebook