Hotter parent company Unbound Group has launched a strategic review and drafted financial advisers as it is understood to be mulling the sale of the footwear retailer.

The group said it has appointed Interpath Advisory and Singer Capital Markets Advisory LLP to “act as joint financial advisers” to manage the review and formal sale process, and it is now in an “offer period” under the Takeover Code.

Unbound said the board is seeking additional funding to “provide the working capital necessary to complete the group’s restructuring and ensure its long-term profitability, stability and resilience”.

It also said the group is expected to make a scheduled bank repayment on July 31, 2023, but confirmed a “temporary working capital shortfall could arise in September and October” as a result of inventory build-up ahead of the autumn/winter 2024 seasonal launch.

This follows the announcement of the group’s operating review in January, which the business said it hoped would “drive growth of revenue and profits”.

Unbound said upon completion of the operating review that “in the short term the greatest opportunity for resilient and profitable growth comes from the simplification of the group’s business” and confirmed its focus on the core Hotter brand within the UK.

The group has “temporarily ceased its loss-making direct-to-consumer sales in the US and the EU”, except for Ireland, and revealed plans to “continue to investigate” the opportunity to grow its US consumer base profitably in the future.

The group also paused activity on its multi-brand eccomerce platform with a focus on its “core Hotter brand amid challenging trading results”, as first reported last week by Drapers, with its homepage expected to become a holding page “within weeks”.

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