// Bonmarche creditors owed £23.9m following administration
// Suppliers are owed £12.6m, and HMRC is owed £1.1m
Bonmarche’s creditors are unlikely to retrieve the £23.9 million they are owed, as there may not be enough cash to make any distributions.
The fashion retailer appointed business advisory firm FRP after falling into administration in October last year.
FRP said in a report that it could not guarantee that unsecured creditors could get their cash back.
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These include suppliers, which are owed £12.6 million, and HMRC, owed £1.1 million.
”Based on the assumptions made in the estimated outcome statement it is currently estimated that there may be sufficient funds available to make a distribution to unsecured creditors in due course,” FRP said in an administrators report published in December.
“This distribution will be paid by a subsequently appointed liquidator, the costs of the liquidation cannot at this stage be estimated and therefore it is not possible to estimate the level of distribution that may be made.”
Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group owner Philip Day bought Bonmarche in July in a cut-price £5.7 million deal, despite warnings from auditor PwC that it might not continue as a business.
Following Bonmarche’s administration, Peacocks – also owned by Day’s Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group – tabled a bid to buy the chain and rid it of its debts and rent obligations.
FRP named Peacocks as its preferred bidder.
Day provided a loan and credit facilities to Bonmarche in August in exchange for security over its assets, meaning any buyer would have had to repay that money.
Bonmarche operated from 316 stores and had employed 2919 staff at the time of its administration.
It has closed 11 underperforming stores since then.
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