Etam Aims For Barratts Concessions

Etam is understood to have approached footwear retailer Barratts to replace its own-bought footwear offer with a concession business.

Industry sources have said that the young fashion chain had been looking to out-source selected product categories, and is known to have approached several footwear specialists as part of this wider UK strategy. Barratts is currently hot favourite to seal the footwear concession deal.

One source sad that Etam has had a tough time generally, but footwear has had a particularly difficult period. The chain wants to bring in a specialist to run footwear so it can focus on getting its core business right, but the terms Etam were negotiating on were very shrewd.

Barratts operates around 350 concessions in total within Arcadia's Dorothy Perkins fascia, with sales of about GBP40 million.

Lat September, Etam admitted that the first six months of 2003 had been difficult in the UK but did not reveal UK figures.