High street fashion brand Ted Baker will shut its stores in Oxford and Bicester, administrators have announced.

This is part of plans to nationally close 15 stores and cut around 245 jobs.

The company behind the fashion brand’s UK shops, No Ordinary Designer Label Limited (NODL), hired administrators from Teneo last month.

On Monday (April 8), they said 11 Ted Baker stores will be shut by the end of next week with a further four planned. It will mean a loss of around 120 jobs.

Meanwhile, around 25 head office workers will also be made redundant in a bid to cut central costs.

The administrators also revealed four further stores will close after landlords served notice on the sites prior to the insolvency.

The stores to be closed as part of the administration are:

  1. Birmingham Bullring
  2. Bristol
  3. Bromley
  4. Cambridge
  5. Exeter
  6. Leeds
  7. Liverpool One
  8. London Bridge
  9. Milton Keynes
  10. Nottingham
  11. Oxford

Four more branches will close after the landlords were served notice.

What is administration?

Going into administration means a company cannot meet its expenses, debt obligations or other liabilities, according to SquareUp.com.

The Government website adds: "When a company goes into administration, they have entered a legal process (under the Insolvency Act 1986) with the aim of achieving one of the statutory objectives of an administration. This may be to rescue a viable business that is insolvent due to cashflow problems.

Recommended reading:

Ted Baker calls in administrators with hundreds of jobs at risk

eBay drops fees for selling pre-owned clothing

Playing cards designed by Vivienne Westwood to go on sale in aid of Greenpeace

"An appointment of an administrator (a licensed insolvency practitioner) will be made by directors, a creditor or the court to fulfil the administration process."

A company going into administration gives it "breathing space" that frees a company from creditor enforcement actions" and allows for financial restructuring plans to be drawn up.

This could take the form of a sale to another company but if it cannot be reasonably saved, the administrator will aim to achieve a better return for creditors than would be likely if the company were wound up.

For example, the company could continue to trade for a period, while seeking a sale of the business or assets or "administration can be used to simply liquidate assets and distribute the proceeds to secured or preferential creditors".