Zolfo Cooper administrators sell Nicole Farhi fashion retailer
Administrators manage to sell all stores, e-commerce arm and concessions of collapsed fashion retailer
ZOLFO COOPER ADMINISTRATORS have sold fashion retailer Nicole Farhi, saving the brand and employees from redundancy.
Peter Saville, (pictured) Fraser Gray and Anne O’Keefe, partners at Zolfo Cooper, were appointed joint administrators to NF Fashion Ltd and NF Acquisitions Ltd on 3 July.
The administrators have sold all six stores and nine concessions across the UK and Ireland as well as the e-commerce business to Maxine Hargreaves-Adams.
Hargreaves-Adams is daughter of Matalan founder John Hargreaves and also bought womenswear retailer Fenn Wright Manson out of administration last year.
Saville, partner at Zolfo Cooper said: “We are extremely pleased to have secured the sale of Nicole Farhi to Maxine Hargreaves-Adams, preserving a well-known retail brand. We wish Maxine and the Company’s employees all the best for what we believe will be a successful future for the business.”
At the start of the administration Nicole Farhi employed 75 staff in retail which have all moved across to the new owner. In total 115 staff are joining Hargreaves-Adams including retail and head office employees.
Nicole Farhi was founded in 1982 by French Connection boss Stephen Marks and Nicole Farhi herself.
It has had a turbulent few years having been owned by three separate organisations in as many years. In 2010 French Connection sold the company to private equity business OpenGate Capital, which last year sold the retailer to another private equity company Kelso Place Asset Management.
NF Fashion had revenues of about £11.8m but made an operating loss of about £2.3m for the year ended January 2011, according to its latest Companies House information.