Homeware chain Fairhaven collapses into administration putting 2,400 jobs at risk
The 118-store retailer, a fixture of out-of-town retail parks since 1987, failed to find a buyer after a summer of falling sales and a £40m rent bill
Fairhaven, the homeware and furnishings chain that has sold curtains, cushions and bed linen from retail parks across Britain for almost 40 years, has appointed administrators after talks with potential buyers collapsed, putting 2,400 jobs and 118 stores at risk.
The Chesterfield-based company said on Friday that it had been unable to secure new funding after its lenders declined to extend a £35m facility that fell due at the end of September. Like-for-like sales fell 9% in the six months to August, and the business had been in arrears on rent at about a third of its stores since the summer. Administrators from a large accountancy firm said they would continue trading while they sought a buyer for all or part of the chain, and that no redundancies had yet been made.
Fairhaven was founded in 1987 by a Derbyshire market trader and grew rapidly through the 1990s on the back of the retail park boom, reaching 160 stores at its peak in 2016. It was sold to a private equity firm in 2018 in a deal that loaded the company with about £90m of debt, much of which was refinanced during the pandemic.
Analysts said the chain had been squeezed from both sides. “Fairhaven sat in the middle: not as cheap as the discounters, not as desirable as the premium brands, and selling the same products as everyone else online,” said Jenna Marlow, senior retail analyst at the consultancy GlobalData. “Homeware did brilliantly in lockdown and has gone backwards ever since. The question was always who would run out of road first.”
The company employs about 1,900 people in stores, 320 at a distribution centre near Markham Vale and 180 at its head office. Staff were told in a video call on Friday morning. “We found out from the news before the call started,” said one assistant manager at a store in Carlisle who asked not to be named. “We have Christmas stock arriving next week. Nobody can tell us whether we are supposed to put it out.”
The failure is the largest in British retail since a chain of department stores collapsed in 2024 and will add to pressure on retail park landlords, who have already seen several large homeware and electrical tenants close units. Property analysts estimate that Fairhaven occupied about 2.6m square feet, much of it in large-format units for which there are few alternative tenants.
The shopworkers’ union Usdaw called on the administrators to prioritise a sale that kept stores open and said it would seek a protective award for any workers made redundant without consultation. The business secretary said the government stood “ready to support any affected workers through the Jobcentre network”.
Fairhaven’s chief executive, who joined the company in 2023 from a supermarket group, said in a statement that the board had “explored every option” and that the outcome was “a source of deep regret”.
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