Stores to close in SA after fashion label’s collapse
A crumbling major Australian brand will see closures in Adelaide despite new buyers circling the fraying retailer.
Two South Australian fashion retail stores will close after the collapse of Cue & Co Pty Ltd in September, administrators have revealed.
The Rundle Street Veronika Maine store and the Harbour Town Adelaide Cue store – both of which sell tailored women’s clothes – will close, administrators saying staff may be redeployed into continuing stores “where possible”.
It comes after the brands’ parent company entered voluntary administration in September, with former owner Hilco Capital saying at the time the decision was “disappointing” but necessary.
Administrators FTI Consulting said in September that Cue had been overwhelmed by overhead costs, despite an increase in sales and other improvements across the business. The news comes as the brands run widespread clearance sales on current clothing.
However, FTI Consulting said the current challenges would not affect retailing of the two labels in major department stores Myers and David Jones.
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Today, the administrators said the business was continuing to trade while the sales process was underway. The business – founded in 1968 – operates 51 outlets across the nation.
This process has uncovered “a small number of selected bidders” who have been shortlisted to potentially buy the parent company.
Those buyers identified a “common group of stores” that they “would not seek to continue with”, administrators said.
Nationally, 26 stores will close across both Cue and Veronika Maine brands from today – about half of the total in Australia.
“The intention is to redeploy team members into continuing stores whenever possible,” the administrators said in a statement.
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