Authentic Brands Group remains committed to Ted Baker, despite the fact that the brand’s North American operating partners are following their European counterparts into liquidation.
According to an Authentic spokesperson, the company is seeking a new partner to run the business, and its U.K.-based design office, U.K. website and wholesale operations remain in operation. Authentic appointed PDS Group as the designer and supplier of Ted Baker’s core categories globally. PDS Group also services wholesale accounts in the U.K. and Europe.
Authentic, the brand management firm, finalized the purchase of Ted Baker at the end of 2022 for 110 pence a share in cash, or around 211 million pounds.
“We are close to finalizing agreements with new partners to operate Ted Baker’s concessions, wholesale distribution and e-commerce businesses,” an Authentic spokesperson told WWD Wednesday. “We remain committed to Ted Baker and are optimistic about the brand’s future.”
This is not the first time Authentic has had to regroup. Earlier this year, it terminated a licensing deal with Arena Group, which had published Sports Illustrated, after Arena failed to make a quarterly license fee payment of $3.7 million. Arena threatened to end the print magazine and fire nearly its entire staff, but Authentic found another operator, Minute Media, and reinstated the employees.
In the case of Ted Baker, in late April, the Ted Baker Group, composed of Ted Baker Canada and Ted Baker Inc., along with OSL Fashion Services Canada and OSL Fashion Services Inc., an Ontario, Canada-based firm that specializes in retail operations, distribution and digital marketing, filed court-supervised restructuring proceedings and appointed Alvarez & Marsal Canada as the “monitor” of the business and financial affairs of the company.
At the same time, the Ted Baker Group filed Chapter 15 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York. That designation is a motion to recognize the proceedings from a foreign country, in this case, Canada.
Since that time, nearly the entire staff — 350 in the U.S. and 280 in Canada — was terminated and the remainder of the employees are working to wind down the business, according to sources.
Ted Baker operates 34 stores in the U.S. and nine in Canada. Liquidation sales started last week and the process will include the merchandise, fixtures, furniture and equipment at the stores and warehouses. On May 10, the e-commerce site was also shuttered.
OSL also holds the license for two other Authentic-owned brands, Lucky Brand and Brooks Brothers, in Canada, and those stores are also being liquidated. The sales are being conducted by Gordon Brothers.
In court papers, Ted Baker Group said the bankruptcy filings were necessary because of the “liquidity constraints caused in part by negative cash flows and working capital issues as well as the threat of the immediate termination of their key license agreements with ABG . . . [and to] provide the breathing room necessary to stabilize and maintain the Ted Baker Group’s business while considering their restructuring alternatives.”
The North American bankruptcies come about a month after Authentic placed Ted Baker’s U.K. and European retail and e-commerce businesses into administration, the U.K. version of bankruptcy, when its relationship with its partner there turned sour.
Authentic had signed a partnership deal with AARC in April 2023 to operate Ted Baker’s 120-plus retail stores and concessions, and the brand’s online business. But according to Authentic, AARC failed to meet its financial obligations and was swiftly removed as a shareholder in the Ted Baker business.
Ted Baker was founded by Ray Kelvin in 1987 and for decades was a recognizable brand on the British high street with its quirky, colorful take on the season’s trends. However, Kelvin resigned in 2019 amid staff complaints about inappropriate physical contact (which he always denied), and the company went on to face a series of crises. In the subsequent years, it posted a string of profit warnings and suffered accounting and management troubles.
