BHS will reopen as a U.K. online brand this week as new owner Al Mana Group of Qatar seeks to revive the 88-year-old British retailer only months after it failed.
Al Mana, which acquired the BHS brand at the time of its collapse in June, will initially sell a range of lighting and home-furnishing products on BHS.com, the company said in a statement Sunday. More products such as kitchen, dining ware and clothing will be added in time for the peak Christmas season.
The new venture will be overseen by David Anderson, a former BHS executive who now has the post of managing director at BHS International. The company will based in London and will have 84 employees, most of them ex-BHS workers. About 11,000 people lost their jobs when the chain’s 163 stores closed for the last time earlier this year. The collapse has sparked public outrage and a parliamentary inquiry.
The BHS brand formerly had an online customer base of about 1.2 million shoppers in the U.K., Anderson said. At the time that BHS went into administration, its international and online businesses were profitable and growing, the company said.
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