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Debenhams shuttered its last remaining stores over the weekend, ending its 243-year stint on the UK high street.
According to Sky News, the retailer closed its remaining 28 stores on Saturday 15 May as it completed its transition as an online only retailer as part of the Boohoo Group.
It had reopened alongside the rest of non-essential retail on 12 April in order to clear its remaining stock. The process of the closures began on 8 May with 52 stores and a further 21 stores closed on 13 May.
Prior to the pandemic Debenhams employed over 20,000 members of staff and operated over 140 stores.
Debenhams fell into administration at the end of last year and was set to be wound down before a £55m deal was agreed with Boohoo.
However, the transaction was for its intellectual property assets only and did not include Debenhams’ retail stores, stock or any of its financial services.
At the time of the deal John Lyttle, CEO for Boohoo, said: “The acquisition of the Debenhams brand is an important development for the Group, as we seek to capture incremental growth opportunities arising from the accelerating shift to online retail.
“We have developed a successful multi-brand direct-to-consumer platform that continues to disrupt the markets that we operate in.”
He added: “The acquisition represents an exciting strategic opportunity to transform our target addressable market through the creation of an online marketplace that leverages Debenhams’ high brand awareness and traffic through the development of beauty and fashion partnerships connecting brands with consumers.”
