New Look is heading back to the deal table. Alcentra and Brait, the chain’s private equity owners, are lining up investment bankers for a strategic review that’s expected to end in a sale. The move follows unsolicited approaches, which tells you this isn’t just a paper exercise. Someone, somewhere, sees value.
On the surface, the timing makes sense. New Look has cleaned itself up over the past couple of years. Sales rose to £769 million last year. Losses have narrowed. There’s been a £100 million refinancing, a £30 million equity injection, and a renewed push into digital. The business is in better shape than it’s been for a while.
But better doesn’t always mean good. New Look still carries the weight of a store estate that belongs to another era. It has roughly 340 shops and employs around 10,000 people. That might sound impressive, but it also makes the company expensive to run and harder to reinvent. The high street isn’t dead, but it’s not exactly a growth engine either.
What’s left is a brand caught in the middle. It’s not niche enough to feel exclusive, not cheap enough to fight toe-to-toe with the likes of Shein, and not fast enough to win the online race. The core audience, women aged 18 to 44, now has more choice than ever, much of it just a few taps away. New Look may still be popular, but popularity alone doesn’t guarantee pricing power or growth.
Any potential buyer will need to believe there’s a future in this middle ground. That New Look can balance stores and digital without being eaten alive on either side. That the brand still has relevance. That there’s more fat to trim or more customers to win. Maybe all three.
Sky News^, which first reported the story, noted that no formal appointment has been made yet. But it’s only a matter of time. Once you start calling the banks, you’re not just testing the water, you’re checking how deep it is.
Management says it’s focused on the long term and won’t comment on speculation. Fair enough. But this move is speculation by design. Whether the outcome is a sale, a restructure or something in between, the message is clear, New Look’s current owners are no longer thinking five years ahead. They’re thinking about the exit.