Cath Kidston buyer agrees to pay UK staff for April

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 23, 2020

Cath Kidston has agreed to pay the firm’s UK staff money they were owned for this month after an outcry over the redundancy of 900 workers shortly before payday. The  firm had originally said they wouldn’t be paid for April but will now come up with the back-pay.

On Tuesday, the staff had been made redundant with immediate effect after the brand was bought out of administration by its previous owner Barings Private Equity Asia.

Management had emailed staff saying that as well as not being paid for April, they’d receive no redundancy money, compensation for any notice periods nor holiday pay owed due to “the company’s current financial position”. They were told they’d have to apply to the the government-backed Redundancy Payments Service (RPS) that can take around six weeks to process claims and caps them at £538 a week.

But CEO Melinda Paraie sent an email late on Wednesday saying the company would pay staff for April 1-20 with those who’d been furloughed receiving the government mandated 80% of their salaries up to a maximum of £2,500.

Staff should have been paid on April 24 but this will now be delayed until April 30 with the CEO also apologising for the delay and saying a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to make the payments happen.

The company had been in the middle of a turnaround when the coronavirus crisis hit and caused a devastating drop in sales. When Barings bought the firm out of administration it announced the immediate closure of all 60 UK stores. Only 32 jobs were saved.