The administrators of Postie Plus say they have secured a conditional agreement to sell the business and its assets to an "international retail group".
The 82-store clothing chain announced yesterday that BNZ had withdrawn its support for the business amid ongoing trading losses and attempts by the board to find a buyer or new cornerstone investor had been unsuccessful.
As a result, the company had appointed Colin McCloy and David Bridgman, of PwC, to run the business under administration.
"The intended purchaser is conducting due diligence over the next three weeks and subject to this due diligence and finalisation of formal documentation, the sale is expected to be completed within the next four weeks," the administrators announced today.
"In the meantime, the administrators, with the support of the company's management and staff, intend to continue trading the business whilst they work through the sale process. The administrators believe that this going concern sale of the Postie Plus business is in the best interests of the company's stakeholders, including its secured creditors, trade suppliers and other creditors, landlords as well as the company's more than 600 staff."
Postie Plus' losses swelled to $3.8 million in the six months to February 2 from $1.8 million in the same period a year earlier.
The company had debt of $18.2 million at the start of February, but that was reduced to $12.1 million later that month after the sale of its SchoolTex school uniform business to The Warehouse Group.
Postie Plus reported an annual loss of $11.6 million last year after what it called "extreme difficulties" at its new, outsourced distribution centre operated by transport and logistics provider Kuehne + Nagel which resulted in stock shortages in stores.
