Coffee Republic joins retail casualty list
COFFEE Republic, which runs a chain of nearly 200 coffee shops and delis, has been placed in administration.
The business, founded in 1995 by brother and sister Sahar and Bobby Hashemi, had been struggling amid falling sales and widening losses for some time.
The brand has six North West outlets – two in Manchester city centre, one in Bury, one at the Lowry Centre in Salford, Chester and Liverpool.
Of those, its Manchester store at York House, along wth its Chester store have gone into administration.
Richard Hill and David Crawshaw of KPMG Restructuring have been appointed joint administrators.
Mr Hill said: “The recession is hitting discretionary spending on the High Street and some of the less profitable bars with expensive leases have suffered.
“However, Coffee Republic has a strong brand and I expect considerable interest in the profitable parts of the business.
“We will be doing whatever we can to find a buyer for the residual business as a going concern as quickly as possible, so interested parties will have to be prepared to move fast.”
Coffee Republic operates a total of 187 coffee bars in the UK and 10 international locations. The 20 outlets owned by Coffee Republic (UK) Ltd have gone into administration while the 70 outlets franchised through Coffee Republic Franchising and further 97 concessions are not in administration.
The group employs a total of 153 staff, 26 of whom are located in its head office in London and 127 employed within the 20 group-operated outlets. The administrators are assessing the viability of individual outlets and expect to close the loss making outlets with inevitable job losses.
