Administrators of collapsed clothing retailers Marcs and David Lawrence are shuttering 20 per cent of stand-alone stores to reduce costs as the hunt for buyers steps up.
Nine David Lawrence stores and four Marcs outlets will close by February 21 and 20 full-time and casual staff will lose their jobs. Another 50 employees will be offered redundancy or jobs in other stores.
The store closures follow the collapse of Marcs' and David Lawrence's parent company, Malcolm Webster's M Webster Holdings, which appointed administrators on February 2.
The administrators, Geoffrey Reidy and Andrew Barnden, of Rodgers Reidy, are looking for buyers, cutting costs and investigating whether the loss-making company traded while insolvent.
Creditors including Mr Webster, a major secured creditor, are owed about $30 million.
"We continue to try to find areas for cost and revenue improvement while maintaining the core business and people as we pursue a sale of the business," Mr Reidy said on Thursday.
"Whilst closing stores is always a difficult decision, we have a responsibility to all staff and all creditors of the business to make it more attractive to any purchaser and reduce short term trading losses.
"Most of these stores would have been closed by the company at some stage in the ordinary course of its business."
M Webster operated 52 stand-alone Marcs and David Lawrence stores, 11 outlet stores and 140 concessions in Myer and David Jones.
Industry sources say that at its peak in 2011, M Webster generated annual sales of more than $100 million, but sales have slumped since the entry of global apparel retailers Zara, H&M; and UNIQLO five years ago.
The stores due to close in the next week were unprofitable and a drain on cashflows.
Most of the stores are in suburban and regional shopping centres and had been earmarked for closure before administrators were appointed. However, one of the stores is a David Lawrence flagship on Little Collins St in the Melbourne CBD.
Expressions of interest for both Marcs and David Lawrence are due by February 22.
Earlier this week, the administrators of high-end apparel chains Herringbone and Rhodes & Beckett said they would close seven of their 22 stores.
Major shareholder, German luxury goods company van Laack, appointed voluntary administrators to Herringbone and Rhodes& Beckett last week following a downturn in trading and a long-running legal dispute with Rhodes & Beckett founder Nelson Mair.
Mr Mair retained a 20 per cent stake in Rhodes & Beckett after van Laack acquired an 80 per cent stake in 2012. He took van Laack to court in 2015 alleging unfair dismissal and oppression of minorities, accusing the company of artificially reducing earnings at Rhodes & Beckett and Herringbone to reduce tax and avoid paying him the full value of his stake under a shareholder agreement.
Other high profile brands that have shut up shop in the last 12 months include childrens wear retailer Pumpkin Patch, budget shoe chain Payless Shoes, and fashion chains Meredith and Moore, Seduce and Laura Ashley.
In a report last year, specialist accounting firm SVPartners said more than 1200 retailers in Australia were in financial distress, including seven with sales of more than $100 million, with clothing retailers most at risk.
