Japanese apparel maker Renown Inc is to enter liquidation after a Tokyo court moved to end its court protection when a sponsor could not be found.
Renown is the owner of brands including Hiroko Koshino, Arnold Palmer and D’Urban. At one point it also owned the British brand Aquascutum.
It had sought bankruptcy protection in May this year after sales took a hit from the coronavirus pandemic and had undertaken restructuring measures since filing for protection from creditors totalling US$133m.
The liquidation process will reportedly begin after a month.
Renown was founded in 1902 and was acquired by China’s Shandong Ruyi group in 2010, another time when Renown’s operations were at stake.
Earlier this year just-style’s interviewed Ruyi Group chairman Qiu Yafu, in which he discussed the reasons behind the collapse of Renown.
“With our active guidance, Renown reformed its business by drastically integrating the brands and stores that were not profiting and improved business efficiency and reduced costs. Renown’s main business was profitable in the second year of Ruyi’s funding,” he said.
“However, due to the rapid changes in the market and consumer behaviour, Renown’s management failed to keep up with changes, failed to develop new sales channels and research and develop products based on different countries’ consumer preferences. Renown failed to develop e-commerce business in the new retail era, resulting in the loss of consumers from its main sales channel. Renown also failed to seize [the rapidly developing Chinese apparel market to seek further growth, leading to severe losses in its brand business in 2018 and 2019, resulting company’s significant loss of cash flow.”
Ruyi did not return a request for comment.
