Future of iconic high street chain with 281 shops in doubt as it's put for sale
Claire's Accessories is exploring a sale of the business as it feels the squeeze of higher US import costs and rising competition in the market.
1
That is according to a report by Bloomberg, which said bankers at Houlihan Lokey Inc are on the hunt for potential buyers for all or part of the jewellery and piercing brand.
The potential sale is understood to include stores across North American and Europe.
Claire's has 2,000 stores in total across both regions, with 281 stores in the UK.
It is not guaranteed the sale will go ahead and the stores across Britain remain open and trading as usual.
The Sun has contacted Claire's for comment
The reports follow a tricky period for the brand, which is popular amongst pre-teens and younger children.
Claire's reportedly has a $500million (£368million) loan looming overhead, which is due in December 2026.
Bossess at the chain have also chosen to defer paying interest on debt and tapped US advisory firms to help shore up extra cash.
It is not the first time Claire's has found itself in hot water.
The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in March 2018.
This means a company intends to reorganise its debts and assets while remaining in business.
Beloved high street chain with 24 Irish locations confirms Dublin city centre store closing down in 10 days in huge blow
Since then, the group has largely been controlled by former creditors including investment firms Elliott Management Corp.
Julie Palmer, partner at Begbies Traynor said Claire's decision to explore a sale comes as "little surprise".
The retail expert said the budget jeweller has been "weighed down" by mounting debt, and Trump's tariffs have only added to its woes.
She explained: "Claire's low-price offering is clearly not strong enough to win over its core customers – teens and young adults – as they now have access to a vast array of affordable and convenient products online through platforms like Amazon and Temu.
"So, with fewer reasons for its customers to visit their stores, the retailer has struggled to stay relevant".
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
Claire's is not the only popular brand to struggle in the face of dwindling sales and rising costs.
River Island will close 33 stores and a further 70 could shut for good as part of a restructuring plan.
Poundland will close 68 stores following its £1 sale to US investmet firm Gordron Brothers.
But even before this announcement, the bargain chain had already planned to close 18 stores,
Elsewhere, Hobby Craft and The Original Factory Shop have made a series of closures in the past few weeks.
Both were bought by Modella Capital, with the investment firm making a series of closures to help shore up costs at the respective groups.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: "The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025."
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
"By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer's household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
29 minutes ago
- The Independent
Space Shuttle is set to be moved out of Smithsonian and to Texas thanks to Trump's tax bill
A famous NASA space shuttle is set to be moved out of the Smithsonian and to Texas after House Republicans passed President Donald Trump's tax bill Thursday. The focal points of the so-called 'big, beautiful bill' have been an extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts and cuts to the low-income healthcare program Medicaid. But there is a lesser-known provision sparking controversy. Once the bill is signed by Trump, $85 million will be allocated to transport the Discovery space shuttle from the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum to Space Center Houston. The shuttle was part of NASA's Space Shuttle program, which ran from 1981 to 2011. The provision was criticized by the Smithsonian and others because of the cost and potential for damage of moving the space shuttle. In a new report by The Washington Post, the Smithsonian estimated it will actually cost more than $300 million to transport Discovery when accounting for costs such as constructing a new facility at Space Center Houston for the shuttle and creating an alternative museum display at the Smithsonian. Discovery would also be 'extremely complex and difficult' to transfer, the Smithsonian said, adding there is a 'significant' threat of damage to the shuttle. Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who flew on the Discovery, also voiced his concerns about the transfer, calling it 'ludicrous and unnecessary.' 'I would much rather see that money invested in NASA's science program,' Reisman told the Post. Trump has proposed cutting back the science program calling its current $7 billion in spending 'unsustainable' in his 2026 budget request. 'If you're going to cut that and then cough up hundreds of millions of dollars into this for what is essentially a political mission — two senators who are concerned only about what's best for their state and not what's best for the country — I find that to be just a travesty,' Reisman said. Those two senators would be Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, both Texas Republicans who backed the provision. A spokesperson for Cornyn told the Post the Smithsonian's estimate for the cost to transfer the shuttle was 'purposefully overblown.' 'An outside vendor skilled at moving military equipment like tanks, military aircraft larger than a space shuttle, and the shuttle mock-up has estimated the total cost to be between $5-$8 million,' the spokesperson said. Cruz argued in a statement to the Post: 'Houston has long stood at the heart of America's human spaceflight program, and this legislation rightly honors that legacy.'
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
The House just passed Donald Trump's ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill.' Here's what that means for you
The GOP's budget package is on its way to President Donald Trump's desk after Speaker Mike Johnson called his colleagues' bluffs and put the Senate's package on the floor for a vote Thursday afternoon. It passed with a thin but steady 218-214 margin after conservatives in the chamber who were upset with changes made to the bill by the Senate folded one last time. So too did all the various Republicans who drew lines in the sand regarding cuts to Medicaid benefits or eligibility standards. The bill was passed through the budget reconciliation process in the Senate, meaning that it required only a simple majority to pass. That process also barred the bill from containing explicit policy provisions — though money itself is policy, and this legislation still provides plenty of funding for the president's political priorities. Here's a look at what made it in the final version, and how it could mean real changes for millions of Americans: Tax cuts for the wealthy At its core, the package's priority is $4.5 trillion in tax breaks enacted in 2017 during Trump's first term that would expire if Congress failed to act, along with new ones. That includes allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay, and a $6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than $75,000 a year. The first and most expensive provision of the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' it is actually an extension of the biggest piece of legislation to pass during Trump's first presidency. Then, after a failed bid to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), Trump and his Republican allies turned to a more politically appealing target: tax cuts. The result was a tax bill passed by the House and Senate before the end of 2017, notable for its changes to the corporate tax rate (setting a flat rate at 21%) and lowering individual income taxes, though the cuts were found by analysts to favor wealthier households. Republicans, at the time, projected that it would not add to the federal debt, though it did. Sound familiar? The insistences from GOP leaders today that the OBBA won't add to the national debt were the same promises made by Republicans in 2017, who claimed that resurgent economic growth spurred on by Donald Trump's magic touch would make up the gap. Now, GOP leaders have the ironic task of selling that argument when the most expensive part of the OBBA is an extension of the deficit-swelling Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This time around, Republicans upped the game by temporarily expanding the child tax credit and removing taxes on some tipped wages. There's also a hiked cap on state and local tax deductions (SALT), part of a deal cut to get Republicans from blue states on board. The cap was boosted from the current $10,000 a year to $40,000, though it will revert in 2030. Somebody's gotta pay for all of this — or at least part of it. That's where Medicaid and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, come in. Both programs will be subject to new work requirements under the law, with Medicaid spending alone estimated to fall by just over $1 trillion over the next decade in the latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). For Americans on the program, that means new reporting requirements and paperwork. Individual eligibility checks will still be handled by state-level agencies, which will set their own guidelines for determining whether recipients are in compliance. SNAP benefits will now be withheld from adults with children who do not return to work, if their youngest child is 14 years or older. The legislation also requires state governments to pick up some of the tab for SNAP payments if their in-state payment error rate is above a certain threshold. Another carve-out in the bill, this time to secure the vote of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, delays this provision in her state. The closest thing to a true policy provision in the GOP bill and one of the least-reported aspects, this section would turn America's immigration enforcement division into one of the most well-funded law enforcement organizations in the entire world. The bill delivers an absolutely massive increase in funding meant to transform the size and scope of immigration enforcement in the United States. Among the provisions: $46.6 billion for completion of the border fencing Trump demanded during his first term; $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement operations including the hiring of up to 10,000 new agents; $45 billion for the construction of new detention facilities. Put simply, the Trump administration is set to have the resources it needs for a massive upscaling in the daily number of arrests and raids that ICE agents are carrying out across the country. The push against the 'Green New Deal' Utterly villainized by the right (to a questionable degree of success) after it was introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, the 'Green New Deal' never actually became law in any form. That doesn't stop Republicans from insisting otherwise, however, and many have latched on to the phrase as they pushed to roll back electric vehicle tax credits passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden's presidency. Those provisions originated in Biden's signature 'Build Back Better' legislation, which failed early into the Democratic president's term thanks to an inability of Democrats to pull two centrist members of their Senate caucus into line. The OBBB strips tax incentives for wind, solar and other renewable energy projects by 2027 and gives developers stringent requirements to claim them. And electric vehicle makers like Elon Musk will also be hit because the bill ends EV tax credits of up to $7,500 at the end of September that had been scheduled to last through 2032. That was a big incentive for potential electric car buyers Raising the debt ceiling This part of the bill is a gift to two people: Mike Johnson and John Thune. The GOP leaders have watched members in both chambers balk against raising the debt limit time and time again, causing headaches for congressional leadership and sapping the time and political capital of the entire Legislative Branch. The just-passed legislation raises the debt ceiling by $5t trillion, averting at least one deadline later this summer. 'Golden Dome' and defense spending
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘It's harsh. It's mean, brutal': Trump bill to cause most harm to America's poorest
Last November, Donald Trump made a solemn vow to all Americans: 'Every citizen, I will fight for you, your family and your future every single day.' Eight months later, Trump is vigorously backing many policies that will mean pain for millions. Trump has pushed to enact the Republican budget bill, which would make significant cuts to Medicaid, Obamacare, and food assistance, and would do the greatest damage to those Americans struggling hardest to make ends meet – the 30% of the US population that lives in households earning under $50,000 a year. Even as Trump and Republican lawmakers are rushing to cut over $1.4tn in health and food assistance for non-affluent Americans, Trump continues to pressure Congress to extend over $3tn in tax cuts that disproportionately help the wealthy and corporations. Trump has embraced these Robin-Hood-in-reverse policies, even though it was voters earning less than $50,000 a year who delivered victory to him last November. They favored him over Kamala Harris by 50% to 48%, according to exit polls, while Trump and Harris tied among voters earning $50,000 or more a year. Several social policy experts said Trump has engaged in hypocrisy at best and betrayal at worst when it comes to the working-class and blue-collar Americans he promised to fight for. Speaking about the Republicans' 'big, beautiful' budget bill, Sharon Parrott, president of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said: 'Who's getting hit, who's bearing the cost? It's people with low and middle incomes, people that the president and many Republican policymakers promised to serve and support in the last election.' The budget bill would mean a net financial loss for the bottom 30% of American households by income – after factoring in its tax provisions and cuts in benefits. The House bill would hit the lowest-earning 10% of Americans hardest: for them, it would mean a painful $1,600 cut in income on average (a 3.9% drop), according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). At the same time, the Trump-backed bill would be a boon to wealthy households – it would mean a $12,000 increase in net income, on average, for households in the top 10%, those earning above $692,000 a year. According to the Yale Budget Lab, the top 0.1% – those with income over $3.3m – would receive tax cuts of $103,500 on average. The CBO says the income of the bottom 10% tops off at $22,868 (before factoring in government transfers). The second lowest decile earns from $22,868 to $43,137; the third decile earns up to $55,628; and the fourth up to $68,601. The Yale Budget Lab found that the bottom 20% of US households would see their incomes drop by 2.9% on average over the next decade, and the second lowest quintile – moderate-income households – would suffer a 0.4% loss of income on average. But the richest 20% would see their incomes rise by 2.3%. Those in the top 1% would see their incomes climb by $29,585 on average. Trump is demanding these big tax cuts for the rich even though the CBO says the budget bill will increase the federal debt by $3.3tn – a move that will push up interest rates and make mortgages and home-buying more expensive. According to the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning thinktank, the $121bn tax cuts that would go just to the richest 1% next year are significantly more than all the tax cuts that would go to the bottom 60% of Americans in terms of income. The poorest 20% of Americans would receive just 1% of the bill's tax cuts next year, while the highest earning 5% would receive 44% of the cuts. Last week, Trump urged lawmakers to enact the bill, saying: 'There are hundreds of things in there. It is so good.' At a news conference, the president said the more than $1tn in Medicaid and food assistance cuts wouldn't hurt anyone. 'It won't affect anybody,' he said. 'It is just fraud, waste and abuse.' But Parrott took a sharply different view: 'The bill stands alone historically for its unique upside-down mix of large tax cuts for the top, deep cuts that affect low- and middle-income people, and massive increases in deficits and debt.' John Ricco, the Yale Budget Lab's associate director of policy analysis, said: 'It's unambiguous that low- and moderate-income Americans will be worse off on average under the budget bill, and that's principally because the cuts in Medicaid and Snap [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] would by definition fall most heavily on these groups,' Ricco said. Jeanne Lambrew, the Century Foundation's director of health policy reform, estimates that at least 16 million Americans will lose health coverage because of the budget bill – refuting White House claims that 'no one will lose coverage'. Lambrew said the bill would cause a more than 50% increase in the number of uninsured nationwide, to nearly 45 million people. What's more, the Trump-backed plan sharply reduces Affordable Care Act subsidies, and that will force millions of Americans to either drop coverage or pay far more for coverage. Millions of Americans will find it harder to obtain healthcare, with many forced to take on far more medical debt. While Trump and many Republicans say the Medicaid cuts are all about reducing 'waste, fraud and abuse', Lambrew calculates that a mere 3.5% of the $1tn in healthcare cuts come from cutting waste and abuse. 'What Trump has been saying is, 'We're not cutting Medicaid. We're just cutting fraud.' That's gaslighting.' Lambrew said. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent the Senate a letter that harshly criticized the budget bill. 'As Pope Leo XIV recently stated, it is the responsibility of politicians to promote and protect the common good, including by working to overcome great wealth inequality,' he wrote. 'This bill does not answer this call. It takes from the poor to give to the wealthy.' According to a Quinnipiac University poll, only 27% of registered voters support the GOP budget bill, while 53% oppose it. A Fox News poll found that 38% support the bill, while 59% oppose it. The House bill's deep cuts in food benefits will cause 7 million people, including over 2 million children, to lose food aid or have their food aid cut significantly. The Trump-supported bill also makes sharp cuts in Pell grant awards. The Center for American Progress says this means 4.4 million students from low- and moderate-income families could lose some or all of their federal grant aid. In another blow to Americans earning under $50,000, Trump pushed to have the budget bill eliminate the 'Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program', which, as one website put it, 'keeps poor people from freezing to death at home'. Killing the program would end heating subsidies for 6 million Americans, but so far congressional Republicans have spared the program and not bowed to Trump on this. In another blow to blue-collar Americans, the bill would undo much of Joe Biden's efforts to speed the creation of clean-energy industries, and that could put hundreds of thousands of potential jobs at risk, many of them factory jobs. 'In this bill, folks in Congress went out of their way not to give anything to low-income people,' said Chuck Marr, vice-president for federal tax policy at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. He noted that in previous tax cut bills that favored the rich, GOP lawmakers made sure to include some sweeteners for low- and moderate-income Americans. 'But in this bill,' Marr said, 'folks in Congress said: no, we're going to go after these people. They're going after healthcare and food, and these are the people who are also going to get hammered by Trump's tariffs.' Lower-income people spend a higher percentage of their income on goods. 'This bill is a major shift,' Marr added. 'They're taking away from poor people and working-class people and channeling it to very high-income people. I think it's punitive. It's harsh. It's mean, brutal.' Trump's tariffs would also hit less affluent Americans hardest. One study found that Trump's planned tariffs would cause the bottom 20% of households to pay up to 5.5% of their income toward tariff-caused higher prices. That's more than two and a half times the percentage that those in the top 20% would pay (2.1% of income). Trump has repeatedly boasted that the bill contains several provisions he championed to help working-class Americans. At a White House event to promote the bill, he pointed to a DoorDash driver from Wisconsin who was on hand to help make his case that the 'no tax on tips' provision would help workers. But tax experts say that provision will help only a tiny fraction of those earning under $50,000. Only 4% of workers in the bottom half by income are in tipped jobs. Moreover, nearly two-fifths of tipped workers are already earning so little that they don't pay federal income taxes. 'Given how the current income tax system works, this provision will provide little or no benefit to those workers,' said Ricco. 'Those workers tend to have low incomes, and the US system doesn't basically tax their incomes, and this won't offer them any additional tax reduction.' In other words, the server making $100,000 a year at a high-end restaurant will benefit substantially from no tax on tips, while the hotel housekeeper or 20-hour-a-week waiter at a diner making $25,000 a year will be helped little or not at all. As for Trump's much-ballyhooed 'no tax on overtime' provision, that, too, will do little for those earning under $50,000, Ricco said. 'That provision is really geared to middle- and upper-middle groups,' he said. 'People in the bottom 50% aren't paying much income tax, and so no tax on overtime wouldn't benefit them much. People in the bottom 40%, they're often in a precarious employment situation. They're generally not working 45 or 50 hours a week.' Ricco estimated that for Americans in the bottom 40% by income, the no tax on overtime provision will mean 'less than a $10 tax cut per year'. 'It's essentially a rounding error,' he said. Republicans boast that increasing the child-tax credit will help millions of struggling families – the House bill would increase that credit, now $2,000, to $2,500, while the Senate raises it to $2,200. Under current law, one in four children – about 17 million – are ineligible to qualify for the full $2,000 credit because their family's income is too low to qualify for the full credit. A two-parent family with two children needs to earn over $48,000 to obtain the full credit. Under the House bill, a single parent with two children who earns $16,000 a year would get no additional tax credit, while a married couple with two kids and a $400,000 income would see their tax credit jump by $1,000. With their eagerness to cut the social safety net, Republicans seem to be treating millions of Americans who earn less than $50,000 as undeserving takers. 'People earning under $50,000 are major targets of the Republican agenda. Their health coverage is targeted. Their food security is targeted,' said Marr. 'They are left out of key provisions expanding tax cuts, like the child tax credit. They are most at risk from the Republican tariffs. They'll be hurt across the board.' Marr said the budget bill treats 'these people very harshly'. 'It's the harshest bill we've ever seen since budget deficits became an issue 40 years ago,' he said. 'This is the first bill that simultaneously targets programs for poor people and working-class people to pay for it, and then takes that money to pay for tax cuts for very wealthy people. It makes poor and working-class people worse off. That's not been done before.'
