Ready-to-wear: the French brand Burton of London in receivership

The French chain of stores Burton of London, in safeguard proceedings since October 2022, has been placed in receivership, its main shareholder, Thierry Le Guenic, said on Thursday. “We had a conversion of the safeguard (procedure) into receivership,” explained Thierry Le Guénic, who bought the chain for a symbolic euro at the end of 2020, specifying that “the project” to make the company profitable “remains identical". André, Camaïeu, San Marina, Kookaï, Gap France... Burton of London, which defines itself as "the most English of French brands", is added to the list of victims of a deep crisis affecting clothing, with a succession of liquidations and receiverships. At issue: the health crisis but also competition from online sales and the second-hand market.

The recovery plan led to the closure of 26 points of sale in February, including those in Aix-en-Provence, Clermont-Ferrand, La Roche-sur-Yon, Créteil, Montauban and Paris Montparnasse – a figure confirmed on Thursday by the brand owner. According to the unions in February, Burton of London was seeking to close or sell 62 stores, to keep 47, threatening some 220 employees out of the nearly 440, a figure then described as “maximum of the maximum”.

In outlets that Burton of London is not closing or trying to divest, women's collections will be phased out to "refocus on men", and outlets will "welcome other brands" of menswear. man, explained the majority shareholder in February. Three stores - Colmar, Rouen and Chartres - will be the first to test this multi-brand store concept. The placement in receivership of the group, which was initially the French subsidiary of an English brand founded in 1904, was decided on June 12 by the Paris Commercial Court, confirmed Thierry Le Guenic.

In 2020, the entrepreneur also bought the furniture brand Habitat from the Cafom group as well as, with the investor Stéphane Collaert, the shoemaker San Marina, placed in compulsory liquidation in February, a company from which he had withdrawn in July. 2021, said his entourage. He also took over the ready-to-wear brand Paule Ka and the lingerie brand Maison Lejaby, and is part with Stéphane Collaert of a trio of investors who bought Chevignon from Vivarte in 2019.