Christo Wiese fashion faux pas: Last look for New Look, China

EDINBURGH — Brait's investment in UK fashion retailer New Look has been a key factor in the company's share price lingering in the doldrums. Christo Wiese, non-executive chairperson of Brait until he stepped down earlier this year, was credited with the South African company driving a hard bargain to purchase New Look in 2015. But the £780m spent on the retailer was written down to zero last year, with New Look reporting operating losses and a drop in revenue. Soon after Brait took over in 2015, the global news media was covered in reports that the fashion chain would rapidly expand its 30-store chain in China. Instead of the 60 extra stores planned for the consumer-oriented nation, it would add at least 80, it said. This was on top of additional stores in Poland and France, The Guardian reported at the time. Wiese also played a key role in Steinhoff, the growth-hungry South African multinational retailer that has teetered on the brink of collapse after financial irregularities were exposed within its books around this time last year. Wiese later stepped down from his role as chairman of Steinhoff and is suing the company in connection with his losses as a major shareholder. – Jackie Cameron

By Thulasizwe Sithole

New Look, the UK high street fashion chain, is to close its retail operations in China as part of a wider review of its international strategy that follows a deal with creditors earlier this year, reports the Financial Times.

The retailer announced its push into China five years ago as one of the flagship initiatives of then-newly appointed chief executive Anders Kristiansen, who left the company last year after a string of disappointing results, it says.

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