91 redundancies made at Internaçionale after PwC appointed administrators

Bruce Cartwright, joint administrator of Internaçionale and partner

at PricewaterhouseCoopers, revealed the closure of eight stores last Friday.

"Since appointment, the administrators of Internaçionale have been assessing the viability of the company's store portfolio," said Cartwright in a company statement. "As a result of this ongoing review, the administrators have taken the difficult decision to close eight stores this week, which means that 91 staff working at these stores will be made redundant in due course."

The stores which have been shut, include locations in Gateshead, Bradford, Telford, Denton Maidstone, Crawley, Mansfield and Bangor in Northern Ireland. "The PwC team is making every effort to assist staff at this difficult time," added Cartwright, noting that the appointed administrators will publish further information concerning Internaçionale and its situation as "developments occur".

The women's fashion retailer has been struggling financially over the past few years and despite corporate restructuring specialist FC Fund Managers, which was led by former city trader Jason Granite, taking control of Internaçionale last month after purchasing its 35 million pounds of debt, the company shareholders choose to enter administration ahead of schedule.

When the fashion retailer entered administration last month, its appointed administrators noted that "due to continued poor trading and increasing creditor pressure," shareholders decided they could no longer support the business and made the decision to "wind down the business through administration".