// Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group owes creditors around £167m
// The retail business collapsed into administration in November 2020
The group of retail assets, which included Jaeger, Peacocks, Bonmarché, and Edinburgh Woollen Mill, fell into administration in 2020 after the pandemic hammered sales.
Administrators’ reports for Peacocks, Jaeger and Edinburgh Woollen Mill show that unsecured creditors haven’t received a penny from what they were owed following the collapse.
Documents seen by the outlet show that each of the parties are due to receive dividends worth up to £600,000 – £1.8m in total.
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Its Bonmarché brand, which collapsed owing unsecured creditors £23.5m, was moved to creditors’ voluntary liquidation in 2021, with reports showing that it did not have enough funds to pay out a dividend.
Following the retailer’s collapse, Jaeger was snapped up by M&S in a £7m deal which excluded the brand’s 63 high street stores.
The other three brands were bought by an anonymous investment consortium backed by the chief operating officer of Edinburgh Woollen Mill and packaged into a company named Purepay Retail.
As part of the deal, former owner Day surrendered his secured creditor position and supposedly stepped away from running the business, although the Times cites reports of skeptical industry sources who were not convinced that Day had departed for good.
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