Agent Provocateur prepares for potential sale following CEO departure

Luxury lingerie label Agent Provocateur could be one step closer to a potential sale following the exit of its chief executive officer Garry Hogarth, as his successor is predicted to prepare the business for a sale. The decision comes after the label’s owner, private equity group 3i, was given the results of a 727,000 pounds strategic review by Goldman Sachs.

Hogarth is set to exit his role later this month, after a ten year tenure leading the brand, in order to pursue other career opportunities . His successor, which is likely to be announced over the next coming weeks, will join in April. In the meantime, non-executive chairman Chris Woodhouse will act as chief executive in the interim period. “Ultimately it’s always the case in private equity that you want to sell a business,” he said in a statement. “It would be reasonable to expect that whoever takes it on will be with 3i during the next phase, but we won’t be selling any time soon and certainly not this year.”

Woodhouse stressed that Hogarth exit was a mutual decision following the review of the business. “We’ve been talking with Garry for a while. We carried out a strategic review of the business asking where we took it from here, where is 3i’s position and whether they want to stay with it. Garry’s done a fantastic job but in terms of being committed to the next stage, we agreed it was right that we part ways.”

News of the Hogarth’s impending exit comes after Agent Provocateur saw profits drop by close to a quarter last year, due to review fees and depreciation. However sales grew by 16 percent to 61.7 million pounds in the year to March 28, 2015 and underlying profits, which exclude one off costs, reached 10 million pounds.