Arcadia is to cut 170 jobs from its head office a day after Sir Philip Green struck a deal with creditors to save his retail empire by closing stores and slashing rents.
Arcadia, which owns brands including Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, said last night that it was “proposing to make some structural changes in order to support and deliver the turnaround plan”. Without the emergency restructuring, all 18,000 staff and the livelihoods of its suppliers would have been at risk.
Arcadia, which can trace its roots back to 1903 and a men’s clothing business in Chesterfield, employs 2,600 head office staff and about 170 are likely to be cut. The agreements reached with creditors on Wednesday pave the way for the closure of 23 of Arcadia’s 566 shops in the UK and Ireland, putting at risk 520 jobs, reductions at 194 sites and the axing of all 11 Topshops in America. A further 25 British shops are earmarked for closure through a separate process, which could hit 500 jobs.
Arcadia said it would try to find other roles in the group for those at risk.
