Kinnaird vows to return Envy to profit by end of the year

Kinnaird, who bought the retailer from Alexon for£1 at the beginning of this month, wants to overhaul the store portfolio, supplier base, product and design to turn the business around. In the year to January 28, 2007, Envy made an operating loss of£2.7 million on sales of£54.7 million.

“Our like-for-likes are positive, so we just need to reduce our operating losses and then the business can start to grow,” said Kinnaird.

Kinnaird will close about 12 loss-making stores. Of these, six that lose about£100,000 a year will close before the end of March. The retailer has 56 stores and about 70 concessions.

“These are stores that are either the wrong size, in a bad location or are rented too high for us to make a profit,” said Kinnaird. “Just by going through the store portfolio, we will be close to where we want to be in terms of reducing our losses.”

Kinnaird has drafted in former Dolcis managing director Paul Drake to be joint managing director at Envy, alongside current MD Dean Argent. Both Drake and Argent are Envy shareholders.

Envy will introduce footwear concessions and expand its own-brand, Tom Wolfe. It will also open about six stores this year, with a refreshed design.

Last week, Kinnaird, who owned Dolcis before it went into administration, lost out to Stylo to buy the footwear retailer.

Stylo bought Dolcis’ trading stock, the brand name and about 10 stores. Chief executive Michael Ziff said the brand would remain on some of the shoes, but would disappear from the high street as the stores are rebranded as Barratts.