The owner of Topshop stores came close to collapse

British billionaire Philip Green's Arcadia Group retail empire, which owns the Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins brands, could collapse in the near future, and 13,000 employees will be left without work, reports the BBC. The appointment of a third-party crisis manager should take place on November 30th.

A last-minute bailout deal likely won't work, Arcadia executives said. The group was on the verge of bankruptcy due to a sharp drop in sales during the pandemic and was trying to negotiate with creditors for an emergency loan of 30 million pounds. Negotiations failed, and a struggle began on the market for its assets. In particular, the online fashion store Boohoo Group became interested in the Topshop brand.

On Sunday, billionaire Mike Ashley's Frasers Group, the brand behind sports chain Sports Direct, offered Arcadia a £50m emergency loan to help with short-term financial problems. According to a letter to the group's management, the proposal will save thousands of jobs and stores. The deal is valid until the bankruptcy process is launched.

Speaking to the BBC, an Arcadia executive said that if they only needed £50m, the group could find it in five minutes. Last year, £200m was poured into the company, but that wasn't enough either.

The bankruptcy of Arcadia will be one of the biggest collapses in the retail era of the corona crisis: one of the pillars of offline commerce, unable to cope with the online transformation, will disappear. The media tend to blame the failure of the "king of British retail" Green himself, who did not recognize the importance of online in time.

Topshop came to Russia in 2006. At its peak, the network developed by BNS Group in Russia had a dozen and a half stores, now there left . are three