Owners of specialist toy retailer Toys R Us are poised to appoint advisers to help restructure £400m of debt, it is understood.

According to The Sunday Times the owners - a consortium of private equity and property backers - are expected to appoint Cairn Capital to help restructure or refinance the debt, which is secured against its UK property assets, before the deadline of April 2013.

The consortium is made up of KKR, Bain Capital and US REIT Vornado, who will have to consult lenders to the business including Blackstone and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to discuss the complex debt restructure.

Toys R Us was bought by the US consortium in 2006 for $6.5bn (£4bn), which included the 29-store UK division. The UK business was then split into a structure that resulted in the property arm being spun off, and then rented by the operating company.

Toys R Us could not be reached.