Beales future secured after landlords back CVA
Some 93% of creditors voted in favour of cutting rents – well above the 75% threshold needed to carry it through
DISTRESSED department store group Beales has been thrown a lifeline after creditors unanimously voted through the KPMG-proposed CVA.
The 30-store Bournemouth-based chain, which was founded in 1881, successfully secured the backing of landlords in its last ditch bid to slash rental payments on 11 of its 29 stores.
Some 93% of creditors voted in favour of cutting rents – well above the 75% threshold needed to carry it through.
But a landlord of one of the stores in Horsham ordered the lease be returned, meaning that outlet will close later this year.
Rob Croxen, restructuring partner at KPMG, said the vote in favour of the CVA proposal “will allow Beales to take its first critical step towards turning the business around, tackling head on the issue of onerous legacy leases which have hampered the organisation in recent years”.
Beales was bought in April last year by businessman and UKIP supporter Andrew Perloff, whose company Panther Securities is also landlord to a dozen of its stores. It is supporting the CVA. Beales said that buying group and its largest supplier, Associated Independent Stores, is also supporting the move.
Panther Securities, which owns the freeholds of 11 of the chain’s 30 stores will embrace a rent hit on two of the properties.
Just last week, the beleaguered BHS department store group also secured a successful CVA deal that saved it from receivership.
In March 2015, retailer Philip Green announced that he was selling BHS Group Ltd, which he had owned for 15 years – to little-known Retail Acquisitions, itself formed just a few months earlier, for £1.
