Ted Baker is reportedly planning to shut all its shops within the next three weeks, sparking fears the retail chain could vanish from highstreets forever.
Earlier this year the company, which is behind the fashion brand’s UK shops, No Ordinary Designer Label Limited (NODL), hired administrators from Teneo.
They have now given staff three weeks notice that they will lose their jobs when the sites are shut down, The Sun reports.
The newspaper added that while such plans have not been finalised, it is the current intention for the business to close all of its shops, according to sources.
The retail giant, as of just a few months ago, had 86 locations in the UK, which included 29 standalone branches and 35 concessions.
In April, administrators confirmed 15 Ted Baker sites across England would pull down their shutters within days.
Eleven shops closed by April 19 across Birmingham, London, Cambridge and Liverpool – resulting in 120 staff losing their jobs.
About 25 head office roles were made redundant as a result of plans to reduce central costs at the fashion chain.
Ted Baker – which first opened in Glasgow in 1988 – has picked up impressive celebrity endorsements over the years including Holly Willoughby, Amal Clooney, Amanda Holden, Emma Stone and Myleene Klass.
But the retailer was delisted from the London stock market after it was bought by ABG for around £210million about a year and a half ago.
ABG said that No Ordinary Designer Label (NODL) had built up a significant level of arrears’.
It also comes months after the end of its partnership with Dutch firm AARC, which ran Ted Baker’s shops and online business in Europe.
The arrears were built up as the business faced tough trading last year, and during the partnership with AARC.
Ted Baker walked away from the AARC deal in January after it claimed its partner had failed to meet its promise to inject cash into the business. Authentic Brands said Ted Baker stores and the retailer’s website would continue to trade.
Authentic, which also owns Reebok and Juicy Couture, agreed a £211 million deal to buy Ted Baker off the stock exchange in August 2022.
The deal was less than had been considered by Authentic earlier in the year when other potential suitors were circling the fashion brand.
It came after years of turmoil at the group. In March 2019, Ted Baker business parted ways with its founder Ray Kelvin after allegations of harassment made by young female colleagues.
Mr Kelvin, who denied allegations of misconduct, was at the time accused of enforcing a ‘hugging’ culture at the company, massaging employees, kissing their ears and asking someone to sit on his lap.
At that point, he had been with the company since founding it 32 years earlier.
Mr Kelvin, started working in his uncle’s Enfield menswear shop aged 11 and founded the Ted Baker brand in 1988, when he opened a shop specialising in men’s shirts in Glasgow turning it into one of Britain’s top brands.
But in 2018 he took a leave of absence when the company was forced to launch an independent investigation into his alleged behaviour following a petition from staff.
In the document Mr Kelvin was also accused stroking people’s necks and making sexual innuendos and today he quit saying: ‘It is the right thing to step away’.
At the time, Mr Kelvin said: ‘Difficult though this decision is given that Ted Baker has been my life and soul for over 30 years, I’ve decided that the right thing to do is to step away from Ted and allow the business to focus on being the outstanding brand it is so it can face 2019 with fresh energy and renewed spirit.
‘As a shareholder in the business I’ll support Lindsay in his leadership and be available to him and the team wherever I can offer helpful advice.
‘I’m extremely proud of what we’ve achieved in building Ted Baker to the global brand it is today. Thank you to every single colleague, customer, supplier, and investor for your commitment to the business. We couldn’t have done it without you and I’m so grateful.
‘The past few months have been deeply distressing and I’ll now be taking time privately with my family to consider what my next adventure will be. Bye for now, Ray.’
The firm then issued several profit warnings and accounting blunders and faced the Covid pandemic while suffering financially.
Hundreds of jobs were canned in 2020 as Ted Baker raised £100million to stabilise its books.
But the valuation of ABG has skyrocketed over the last few years after it was reported it sold a controlling stake the the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock in August 2019 for $870million.
Having worked in his family clothing business in North London since he was 11, Ray Kelvin set up Ted Baker selling men’s shirts in Glasgow.
It took off in the ‘acid house’ era of the 1990s, when its brightly coloured shirts became popular with club-goers.
Ted Baker rose to prominence due to its secret of quality at an affordable price.
Kelvin was brought up in Cockfosters, North London, which his late mother Trudie told him to pronounce ‘Co’fosters’ to sound posher.
He lives in Hampstead with his second wife Clare whom he married 12 years ago. They have a daughter, Ava.
He has two sons – Ben and Josh – with first wife Georgia Slowe, who appeared in soap opera Emmerdale as lady of the manor Perdita Hyde-Sinclair.
‘Ted Baker’ is not a real person – and one theory suggests that Kelvin did not name the brand after himself in case it went bust.
Ray Kelvin resigned in March 2019 following allegations of harassment including unwanted cuddles and asking young female workers to sit on his knee and let him massage their ears.
And in December that year, bosses of the firm quit after profits plunged to less than £10million after its ‘worst ever year of trading’.
The group said at the time that chief executive Lindsay Page – who took over from founder Ray Kelvin after he quit – had been replaced by an interim director.
The resignations were announced as Ted scrapped its shareholder dividend payout and said it is now expecting annual pre-tax profits of between £5 million and £10 million after worse-than-expected trading in November and over Black Friday. This compared with pre-tax profits of £50.9 million the previous year.