{"id":161020,"date":"2019-03-05T23:30:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T23:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/jack-wills-accounts-reveal-historic-challenges-faced-by-the-business\/"},"modified":"2021-08-12T13:55:18","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T13:55:18","slug":"jack-wills-accounts-reveal-historic-challenges-faced-by-the-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/jack-wills-accounts-reveal-historic-challenges-faced-by-the-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Wills accounts reveal historic challenges faced by the business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jack Wills has this week filed accounts for the year to January 2018 which show the <strong>British fashion brand racked up a loss at EBITDA level of -\u00a37.5m<\/strong> during the challenging 52-week period, but the company said it has since received further financial and has \"moved on significantly since then\".<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Sales for the period were down slightly (-1.1%) at&nbsp;\u00a3129.3m, despited the <strong>opening of 12 new stores stores<\/strong> during the period (one store was closed), while gross margin earned on sales fell significantly to 50.98% from 55.87% in the prior year.<\/p>\n<p>However <strong>in January of this year the business concluded a refinancing<\/strong> involving the reconfirmation of a \u00a325m revolving credit facility with HSBC, a minority investment from Italian investor GGG S.p.a (Giorgio Girondi) and further investment from its private equity backer BlueGem.<\/p>\n<p>Last year the business <strong>parted company with its founder and CEO Peter Williams<\/strong> who had been back in charge for a second stint. Williams had bought the company back from its previous long-term investor, Inflexion, in partnership with BlueGem in 2015. But it was hit by the slump in Sterling following the Brexit vote which pushed up its costs and a move into wholesale had tied up cash in other retailers' stock.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Suzanne Harlow, formerly trading director of Debenhams,<\/strong> was brought in to replace Williams and as one of a number of turnaround measures has implemented a new sourcing strategy to cut costs and keep pricing competitive.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement the company said:&nbsp;\u201cIt is true that 2017\/18 was a challenging year but the business has moved on significantly since then. <strong>The improved processes and tighter financial disciplines<\/strong> we have put in place helped halve the ebitda loss for&nbsp;2018\/19.<\/p>\n<p>\"Looking forward, Jack Wills recently completed a significant refinancing, with continued support from our major shareholder, BlueGem. This puts us <strong>on a firm footing as we seek to return to sustainable growth<\/strong> by improving our product range and re-engaging with customers via the right channels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10585,6,10494],"tags":[11024,10388,13379],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jack Wills accounts reveal historic challenges faced by the business - TheIndustry.fashion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jack Wills has this week filed accounts for the year to January 2018 which show the British fashion brand racked up a loss at EBITDA level of -\u00a37.5m\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/jack-wills-accounts-reveal-historic-challenges-faced-by-the-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jack Wills accounts reveal historic challenges faced by the business - TheIndustry.fashion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jack Wills has this week filed accounts for the year to January 2018 which show the British fashion brand racked up a loss at EBITDA level of -\u00a37.5m\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/jack-wills-accounts-reveal-historic-challenges-faced-by-the-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TheIndustry.fashion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theindustryfashion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-03-05T23:30:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-12T13:55:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lauretta Roberts\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@theindustryfash\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@theindustryfash\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lauretta Roberts\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/jack-wills-accounts-reveal-historic-challenges-faced-by-the-business\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/jack-wills-accounts-reveal-historic-challenges-faced-by-the-business\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lauretta Roberts\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/#\/schema\/person\/85b04a16eba8c6cd7a9534c5a4262b89\"},\"headline\":\"Jack Wills accounts reveal historic challenges faced by the business\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-03-05T23:30:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-12T13:55:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/jack-wills-accounts-reveal-historic-challenges-faced-by-the-business\/\"},\"wordCount\":336,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"BlueGem\",\"Jack Wills\",\"Suzanne Harlow\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Finance\",\"News &amp; 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