The clothing store chain Esprit has announced its bankruptcy in Belgium due to rising energy costs and rents in this European country, according to a document communicated to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange where the group is listed.
This concerns the 15 stores directly managed by the chain in Belgium, which employ a total of 148 people, according to the Belgian union Setca affiliated to the FGTB (socialist).
The ten points of sale operated in the country by independents will be able to continue their activity, Christophe Bouvier, an official of this union, told AFP.
“The group will also continue online sales and its clothes will still be available in multi-brand stores,” he stressed.
The stores grouped together in the Esprit Belgie Retail subsidiary are facing a decline in demand combined with an increase in their fixed costs, according to the stock market document announcing the opening of insolvency proceedings.
“The general economic slowdown, combined with the sharp increase in energy and logistics costs, negative consumer sentiment in Europe and high rents (…) for stores of unsuitable size, ultimately made it financially unviable to continue the activity retail sales as it is currently structured in Belgium”, specifies this document communicated Monday evening to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The subsidiary’s bankruptcy filing was made to the company court in Antwerp (north), responsible for appointing judicial administrators.
The clothing chain, founded in 1968 in San Francisco, now registered in the Bermuda Islands and listed in Hong Kong, had already gone through a period of crisis in the early 2010s, leading to the closure of numerous stores on the American and European continents.
