Popular 130-year-old fancy dress brand SAVED after collapsing into administration – and all stores will remain open
A POPULAR fancy dress brand has been saved from insolvency after collapsing into administration.
Smiffys, a family-owned fancy dress business has been bought within hours of appointing administrators at PwC.
The whole business, including its physical stores, has now been sold to Ad Populum LLC.
The 130-year-old retailer, which sells party costumes, wigs and decor, was founded in 1894 and is said to ship more than 26million items each year.
It also distributes 7,500 products to thousands of stockists around the world.
The brand operates an online store and trades from five physical stores across the country.
Its stores in Liverpool, Newcastle, Headingley, Leeds, and Oxford remain open as normal.
Jane Steer, joint administrator and partner, PwC, said: “Smiffs’s is a popular brand that has been operating in one form or another since 1894.
“But sadly, like many other retailers, it was impacted by the after-effects of the pandemic.
“The buyer, Ad Populum, will add Smiffy’s to its comprehensive range of brands which includes extensive experience of the fancy dress and toy markets.”
Ad Populum owns several brands, such as NECA, a global distributor of pop culture action figures and collectables.
It also owns game developer and published Wizkids, Kidrobot, a creator of limited-edition art toys and lifestyle accessories, and Rubies II a US costumes company.
The news comes just weeks after Sky News reported that Smiffys was on the brink of insolvency.
The company filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators on Thursday, May 30.
At the time, a spokesperson for the retailer said: “Following four extremely challenging years as a result of the pandemic, the subsequent supply chain crisis, and the ongoing inflationary burden on both businesses and consumers, Smiffys was required to take the difficult decision yesterday to file a notice of intention to appoint administrators.”
When a firm goes into administration, potential buyers have the option of buying all or part of the business.
For example, a buyer may only opt to buy the brand’s name and trademarks without making an offer for the physical stores.
Luckily for Smiffys, all of the business has been snapped up and it’s understood that the chain’s physical stores will continue to trade as normal under new ownership.
However, rescue deals haven’t always been that straight forward.
When Paperchase collapsed into administration last year, all 106 shops closed.
But the name lives on as Tesco snapped up the brand, and its range of stationary, cards and gifts can now be bought online and at some selected Tesco stores.
When Wilko collapsed into administration last August, all stores closed.
The Range bought up the brand name and intellectual property and started selling Wilko-branded products in stores.
It then launched a Wilko website and, in a shock move, started opening new Wilko stores on the high street.
Poundland swooped in to acquire 71 Wilko stores, and B&M purchased 51 more sites, integrating them into their own brands.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline.
The Sun’s business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open. In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.