ASOS, the online fashion retailer, has hired a lead doctor from the company amid pressure from its lenders over the state of its balance sheet.
Sky News has learned that Scott Millar, a senior managing director at professional services firm Ankura, has been appointed by ASOS to join its finance department.
A source close to the company said Millar would become interim director of financial projects, though several experts suggested on Thursday that he would play an important role in seeking to strengthen its financial position.
A former director of restructuring at Interserve, the outsourcing giant that collapsed into administration in 2019, Mr. Millar has worked on a number of leading insolvency professionals.
Among his former employers was AlixPartners, which has been advising ASOS lenders on their exposure to the company in recent months.
A person close to ASOS denied that Mr. Millar’s role was similar to that of a conventional CRO.
Earlier this month, José Antonio Ramos Calamonte, chief executive of ASOS, said the company had “broad balance sheet flexibility.”
The online retailer, which bought Topshop out of administration in 2021, boomed in sales during the early phase of the pandemic but has struggled ever since, grappling with a series of management changes.
It has replaced its president, CEO and chief financial officer in the past year.
Early in the pandemic, it raised close to £250m from a share sale to enable it to take advantage of opportunities that have arisen from the dislocation caused by COVID-19.
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Topshop was the most prominent of these, although it has also explored other acquisitions during the period.
However, inflationary pressures and fading investor assumptions that rising demand during the pandemic would be sustainable have coalesced into a series of earnings warnings.
It recently said it had cash and undrawn credit lines of around £430m, and would return to a cash-generating position in the second half of the year.
ASOS added that it had scaled back its capital spending plans for 2023.
Last fall, Sky News revealed that its biggest lenders, which include Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group, were lining up AlixPartners and the Clifford Chance law firm to advise them on the finances of ASOS.
Other advisers involved in the discussions include PJT Partners and EY, the accounting firm.
On Thursday, ASOS shares were trading at around 794 pence, giving it a market value of almost £780 million.
The stock has fallen about two-thirds over the past 12 months.
Other online fashion retailers, including the Boohoo Group, have also seen their value fall amid a cocktail of economic headwinds.
ASOS declined to comment.
Source: news.google.com