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Administrators for Arcadia are reportedly seeking a price tag of £200m for the firm’s Topshop brand and are looking to agree a deal before Christmas.
According to The Guardian, administrators Deloitte are expecting to receive initial bids for the brand by the end of next week (18 December).
Online retailer Boohoo is reportedly being considered the frontrunner for any move for Topshop but it is understood other interested parties include Next, Marks and Spencer, Frasers and private equity firms such as Alteri Investors.
Some sources cited by the paper claim that supermarket giant Tesco could also be considering a move for parts of the Arcadia business.
The news comes weeks after the Arcadia Group collapsed into administration, placing 13,000 jobs at risk.
The retail empire, owned by Sir Phillip Green, failed to secure urgent funding needed to keep it afloat following the effects of the pandemic.
At the time, joint administrators from Deloitte confirmed in a statement to Retail Sector that they were “assessing all options available” to the group.
Ian Grabiner, CEO of Arcadia, said: “This is an incredibly sad day for all of our colleagues as well as our suppliers and our many other stakeholders. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic including the forced closure of our stores for prolonged periods has severely impacted on trading across all of our brands.
“Throughout this immensely challenging time our priority has been to protect jobs and preserve the financial stability of the group in the hope that we could ride out the pandemic and come out fighting on the other side. Ultimately, however, in the face of the most difficult trading conditions we have ever experienced, the obstacles we encountered were far too severe.”
Read Retail Sector’s analysis – ‘Arcadia: Where did it all go wrong?’
