Green's quick sale of 67 Etam stores

THE Bhs billionaire Philip Green has moved swiftly to carve up the loss-making Etam fashion chain, selling two parcels of stores to rival retail groups.

Little more than a week after buying the business, Green is selling on 47 shops to Monsoon and 20 to his friend and associate Tom Hunter, whose West Coast Capital includes the Office shoes chain.

This leaves Green with around 133 Etam shops, at least 15 of which he plans to convert into Top Shop outlets. 'It will take Top Shop into towns and cities where it does not currently trade,' Green said. 'We're still analysing the rest of the chain. The business was in a horrible mess.'

Green declined to say how much he paid for the struggling Etam chain, but Monsoon says the total cost of the deal, including the cost of converting the stores to Monsoon or Accessorize branches, will be £43m.

The bulk of that is thought to cover conversion costs, rather than the purchase price paid to Green. Monsoon will be taking on some 3,000 Monsoon staff as a result of the deal.

Around a dozen of the smaller stores will close, resulting in one-off asset write-offs for Monsoon of £4m and disposal costs of a further £2m.

Overall, the new stores will increase the Monsoon and Accessorize's net trading space by around 30%, the full benefits of which will not be seen until the second half of the next financial year.