The Body Shop to Close 75 Stores Across UK and Cut Hundreds of Jobs

The closures are unfold throughout the nation, from Swansea to Glasgow, and imply that almost 800 folks will lose their jobs when the 300 redundancies on the head workplace are taken under consideration.

Nonetheless, 116 shops will keep open underneath the adjustments, which have an effect on solely the corporate’s UK operations, the administration agency FRP stated.

Final week, the directors laid out plans to retain greater than half of Physique Store shops as they introduced the closure of seven outlets. On Thursday, they informed employees an extra 75 shops would shut over the following 4 to 6 weeks.

The retailer, which employs greater than 2,200 folks within the UK, referred to as in directors this month, simply months after being taken over by the restructuring firm Aurelius in November.

Tony Wright, the joint administrator, stated: “In taking swift motion to right-size the Physique Store UK retailer portfolio, now we have stabilised the enterprise and are offering the very best alternative for this iconic model to have a long-term, sustainable future.”

“The UK enterprise continues to commerce in administration, and we stay totally targeted on exploring all choices to take the enterprise ahead.”

Aurelius is known to be the primary creditor, with secured debt that can guarantee it will get paid by directors earlier than most different collectors. It’s anticipated to take again the chain after the store closures and job cuts.

The Physique Store has had three house owners because it was bought by its founder, Anita Roddick, shortly earlier than her demise in 2007.

Roddick, who arrange the enterprise in Brighton in 1976, campaigned towards animal testing of cosmetics and promoted pure merchandise sourced ethically in a method that may help small producers all over the world.

She shocked followers of the model by promoting as much as L’Oréal, the cosmetics multinational that owns Maybelline and Garnier, for £652 million.

The model was then bought on to the Brazilian pure cosmetics group Natura, which already owned the Australian Aesop magnificence model, for €1 billion in 2017. After Natura constructed up money owed in shopping for the home-selling cosmetics group Avon, it bought off Aesop to L’Oréal after which The Physique Store to Aurelius late final yr.

By Julia Kollewe

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