“I have followed Evans for over a decade and seen how within Arcadia’s portfolio the brand has evolved from a dominant high street retailer into a more digitally focused business. We had a successful partnership with Evans for many years which was a great channel for the City Chic brand in the UK. Evans gives us an excellent foundation in a new geography to grow our collective and is a brand which aligns with our existing product streams. The acquisition meets our strategic objective of growing through global customer acquisition, digitally (...) In addition to providing a launching pad into a new market, we are confident we can deploy our lean, customer-centric operating model to drive revenue growth and cost efficiencies in the existing business. We have a great opportunity ahead of us to develop the third major region for the City Chic Collective”, commented Phil Ryan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of City Chic.

Evans is a UK-based retailer of women’s plus-size clothing with a longstanding customer base and strong market position. The Evans Assets will be acquired from Evans Retail Limited and certain other entities within the Arcadia group, which entered into administration on the 30^th of November 2020. The acquisition will be completed on the 23rd of December 2020, subject only to payment of the cash consideration.

City Chic will acquire the Evans brand and intellectual property, customer base and inventory, which represents the key assets of the eCommerce and wholesale businesses. City Chic will also receive the benefit of a transitional services arrangement in connection with the Evans eCommerce business until April 2021. The transaction excludes the Evans “bricks and mortar” store network of over 100 locations in the United Kingdom. The administrators are entitled to trade from the existing Evans stores until the end of March 2021, in order to liquidate existing stock in the stores. The franchise business, based primarily in the Middle East, is also excluded from the acquisition.

Established in 1930 in the United Kingdom, Evans is a well-recognised specialty retailer of plus-size apparel and footwear, targeting a broad customer base across the conservative and fashion segments. In the financial year to August 2020 (12 months), the Evans website had 19 million visits and generated approximately 23 million British pounds of sales and the wholesale business delivered sales of approximately 3 million British pounds. The Evans group (online, wholesale, stores and franchise) generated over 60 million British pounds of annual sales prior to COVID-19. Evans has high online penetration, with almost half of direct-to-consumer sales (stores and website) being through the digital channel. The store portfolio has been shrinking for a number of years with customers transitioning to the digital channel, which City Chic anticipates will minimize any eCommerce sales leakageas a result of the administration-led store liquidation. 

A  global  omni-channel  retailer  specialising  in  plus-size  women’s  apparel, footwear and accessories, owning brands, such as, City Chic, Avenue, CCX, Hips & Curves and Fox & Royal and youth oriented CCX. The group has a omni-channel model comprising of a network of 96 stores across Australia and New Zealand; websites operating in NZ and the US; marketplace  and  wholesale  partnerships  with  major  US  retailers  such  as  Macys  and  Nordstrom;  and  a  wholesale  business  with  European  and  UK  partners  such  as  ASOS  and  Zalando.