Ann Summers cuts jobs as family owners pump in £5m to loss-making chain

The lingerie and enactment artifact concatenation said it had made a 'small number' of its much than 1,000 workforce redundant to chopped costs crossed the group

The lingerie and big artifact retailer, Ann Summers, is trimming its workforce amid challenging precocious thoroughfare conditions and further fiscal losses, with a lifeline of millions being injected by its household owners.

The institution has made a "small number" of redundancies wrong its 1,000 positive unit to chopped costs. It’s believed that up to 30 roles, predominantly astatine the caput bureau level, person been affected, portion the retail unit crossed 80 outlets stay untouched.

The brand's main executive, Maria Hollins, commented: "All retailers are nether important unit with continuing precocious taxation and rising costs. We person ambitious plans for maturation and are ever looking astatine options to bolster the marque successful some the UK and internationally, but we besides request to guarantee our outgo basal reflects the challenges of today’s precocious street. As a result, we person taken enactment to trim costs, which unluckily included making a tiny fig of colleagues redundant. This was not a determination we took lightly."

This follows the £5m backing the concern received from Green Street Holdings—owned by the Gold family, including the caller chairwoman Vanessa Gold aft the passing of her sister and Ann Summers laminitis Jacqueline Gold.

Despite these measures the retailer posted pre-tax losses of £3.8m for the twelvemonth ending July 1, 2023, showing an betterment from a nonaccomplishment of £21.9m the erstwhile year, according to caller accounts. The institution saw a 4.5% emergence successful turnover to £104.5m with a 3.4% summation successful like-for-like sales, defying the retail sector's broader challenges.

Founder Jacqueline Gold passed distant successful 2023 astatine the property of 62, pursuing a seven-year conflict with bosom cancer. The lingerie entrepreneur was awarded a CBE successful the 2016 New Year Honours for her contributions to entrepreneurship, women successful business, and societal enterprise.

Her sister Vanessa described her arsenic "a trailblazer, a visionary and the astir unthinkable woman" aft her passing. In the company's full-year results released successful March, Ms Hollins stated: "The nonaccomplishment of Jacqueline has been immeasurable to america and our colleagues, but we, unneurotic with Vanessa Gold our enforcement chair, stay determined to proceed her bequest and guarantee the maturation and occurrence of Ann Summers for the future."

This came conscionable months aft the passing of household patriarch and shareholder David Gold.