Marks & Spencer said to be eyeing potential buyout of Gieves & Hawkes

Marks & Spencer is said to be eyeing a potential buyout of Savile Row's Gieves & Hawkes as it looks to create a portfolio of heritage fashion brands, following its purchase of Jaeger at the start of this year.

Historic tailoring house Gieves & Hawkes, which occupies No 1 Savile Row, faces an uncertain future due to troubles at is parent company Trinity, which is in turn owned by Chinese Group Shandong Ruyi.

A hearing in Hong Kong will take place on 4 November to decide the fate of Trinity, which also owns Cerruti and Kent & Curwen. A winding up order has been made against Trinity, followed a failed attempt to appeal against its creditors having defaulted on a Standard Chartered loan.

According to The Times, Marks & Spencer is one of the parties interested in picking up Gieves & Hawkes, along with another historic house owned by Shandong Ruyi, Acquascutum. Acquascutum was founded in London in 1851 and for years occupied a flagship store on Regent Street but no longer operates in the UK. It was acquired by Shandong Ruyi in 2017 and placed into administation in September 2020 in the same month that Trinity was named its exclusive license holder.

RSM has been hired as the liquidator for Gieves & Hawkes and is looking to find a buyer to secure its future. It is understood that two previous attempts to find another Chinese buyer had failed.

M&S's interest is said to be an early stage and no adviser has been appointed to lead a potential bid at this stage. If it does go ahead and succeed, it would lead to the creation of a solid heritage brand portfolio for M&S. Gieves & Hawkes can date its history back more than 250 years, while Aquascutum is 170 years old and Jaeger is 137 years old. Having acquired Jaeger in January after it was placed into administration by Philip Day's Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group, M&S recently unveiled its first new collection for the brand.

Marks & Spencer has been pursuing a third-party brand strategy of late to complement its own label. It has signed agreements to sell a number of brands that it believes target a similar customer base to its own, including Clarks, Seasalt, Hobbs and Nobody's Child.