The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group has bought clothing chain Peacocks saving many of the stores and three distribution centres.
It is taking on 338 stores, 57 concessions, three distribution centres and the head office operations saving some 6,000 jobs.
“There will be a considerable amount of work to undertake over the next few months to stabilise the situation, turn this business around, get the supply chain moving again and excite the customers with great products,” said Philip Day, chairman of EWM.
Peacock’s main distribution centre is at Parc Nantgarw on the Caerphilly / Treforest Industrial Estate north of Cardiff.
Chris Laverty, joint administrator and restructuring partner at KPMG, said: “Like many other retailers, Peacocks suffered from a decline in consumer spending due to the tough economic conditions and this, combined with a surplus of stores and unsustainable capital structure led to the business becoming financially unviable.”
Some 224 stores were not included in the sale and have ceased trading with immediate effect, resulting in 3,100 redundancies. There will also be approximately 16 redundancies at the headquarters in Cardiff.
EWM has made a number of acquisition over the past few years including Ponden Mill, Rosebys, Proquip, and Jane Norman. Group sales in 2010 was more than £240m.
