High street beauty chain Bodycare to close 32 stores with 450 job losses
High street beauty chain Bodycare has confirmed it will shut 32 shops and cut around 450 jobs.
Sky News’ City editor Mark Kleinman reported last week that the health and beauty retailer, founded on a Lancashire market stall more than half a century ago, was facing a fall into administration.
No rescue deal came, and the store has announced today that it will need to close stores.
These are:
- Beverley
- Cameron Toll
- Cannock
- Clydebank
- Cramlington
- Croydon
- Darwen
- Dumfries
- Edinburgh
- Erdington
- Falkirk
- Hemel Hempstead
- Kirkcaldy
- Loughborough
- Lytham St Annes
- Macclesfield
- Maidstone
- Morecambe
- Newport
- Northfield
- Paisley
- Parkhead
- Perth
- Port Talbot
- Rhyl
- Royton
- Scunthorpe
- Stourbridge
- Tamworth
- West Bromwich
- Wood Green
- Wrexham
The retailer said it will make around 450 of its roughly 1,500-strong workforce redundant as a result.
Bodycare, which currently has 147 UK stores, said it had come under pressure from rising costs, a delayed transition from its online retail platform and cost-of-living pressures on its shoppers.
It also said it suffered a shortfall in funding after aborting a planned stock market listing last year, which also impacted supplier relationships and led to stock shortages.
The company hired administrators from advisory firm Interpath, which is now looking at a potential rescue sale of the business and its assets, on Friday.
The insolvency specialists have said they will continue to run the business from the majority of its shops for the time being.
These shops “will remain open and operational as usual”, the company said.
‘Too difficult’
Nick Holloway, joint administrator and managing director at Interpath, said: “These remain challenging times for high street retailers as rising costs and reduced consumer spending continue to weigh heavily on trading.
“Unfortunately for Bodycare, which was also contending with a significant funding gap and increasing creditor pressure, these challenges proved too difficult to overcome.”
He said they would be providing support to employees impacted by redundancy.
The chain was profitable before the COVID pandemic, but like many retailers, lost millions of pounds in the financial years immediately after it hit.
