Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
It has been confirmed that the fashion and homewares chain Life & Style has been placed into administration.
RSM Tenon directors Simon Bonney, Peter Hughes-Holland and Tom MacLennan have been appointed as joint administrators, and are conducting an immediate review of Life & Style’s business.
The administrators say that the retailer will continue to trade throughout this period.
Life & Style was created partly out of Ethel Austin, a clothing retailer which began life in the 1930s. In 2008, businesswoman Elaine McPherson bought the company out of administration, but it became insolvent again two years later.
It, along with the Au Naturale homewares stores, were then purchased again by McPherson, who renamed the chain Life & Style in the process. The current procedure marks the retailer’s third administration in three years.
“Life & Style has been brought to this situation through poor trading,” said Simon Bonney. “We are currently looking at all aspects of the business, but with the exception of closures that the business had planned before it was put into administration, stores will remain open for the immediate future.”
Offers are being sought for the business and assets, and private equity firm SKG Capital is said to be interested in running the business as a going concern, according to a report in Retail Week.
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