Wales based Debenhams stores spared the axe as twenty-two stores look set to close

Debenhams stores based in Wales have been spared the axe temporarily as the giant retailer launches its Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), which will see at least 22 of its underperforming stores close by 2020 placing 1200 jobs at risk.

Debenhams is now in the hands of  its secured lenders after administrators were appointed to handle the sale of the business to a newly incorporated company.

The secured lenders are reportedly made up of a mixture of banks and US hedge funds. There had been no immediate closures of any Debenhams stores, which employ around 25,000 people in total.

The retailer will now be looking to renegotiate rents at many of its sites.

The disappearance of some of the best known high street stores has been a rapid process, which has been attributed to consumers’ changing behaviours from shopping in-store to online. Over 2,400 stores disappeared from the UK’s top 500 high streets in 2018.

There are ten Debenhams stores in Wales including a store at Parc Trostre in Llanelli, a store in Carmarthen and in Swansea.

A full list of those due to close is as follows:

Altrincham
Ashford
Birmingham Fort
Canterbury
Chatham
Eastbourne
Folkestone
Great Yarmouth
Guildford
Kirkcaldy
Orpington
Slough
Southport
Southsea
Staines
Stockton
Walton
Wandsworth
Welwyn Garden City
Wimbledon
Witney
Wolverhampton