Bay Trading deal costs 1,200 jobs

Bay Trading clothing from Bay Trading website

About 125 outlets at Bay Trading will close, administrators say

Fashion retailer Bay Trading is to shed about 1,230 jobs and close 125 outlets after administrators agreed a deal to sell the chain.

Rinku Group - which already owns chains including Tigi-Wear, iZ and Viz-a-Viz -has bought 45 Bay Trading stores and 85 concessions along with the stock.

Administrators Deloitte said the deal would safeguard 566 jobs.

Bay Trading went into administration in late April after credit insurance was withdrawn from the chain.

Credit insurance protects suppliers against the risk that they will not be paid for their products.

"We are pleased that we have been able to secure Bay Trading's future," said Lee Manning, joint administrator and partner at Deloitte.

"It will be predominately a concessions-based business, with a number of stores also continuing to operate."

Loss-making

Bay's parent company Alexon made a pre-tax loss of £27.7m in 2008 compared with £12m profit the previous year.

At the time that Bay entered administration, its parent company Alexon stressed that its other brands, such as Ann Harvey and Kaliko, would be unaffected.

Alexon operates two separate businesses: Epcoscan, which trades as Bay Trading, and Alexon Brands, which runs outlets such as Ann Harvey, Kaliko, Eastex and Alex & Co.

In April, Alexon said that Bay Trading had been loss-making and had relied on funding from the rest of the group to survive.