SOME 13,000 staff of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group face an anxious wait following the business collapsing into administration.

The high street giant, which includes the Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Burton brands, has hired Deloitte to handle the next steps after the pandemic 'severely impacted' sales across its brands.

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Many of Arcadia’s staff worked at its brands’ concessions in Debenhams, which is itself hoping for a rescue deal after sliding into insolvency earlier this year.

Arcadia, which runs 444 stores in the UK and 22 overseas, said 9,294 employees are currently on furlough.

No redundancies have been announced as a result of the appointment and stores will continue to trade, the administrators said, with many due to reopen tomorrow including Oxford's Topshop in Queen Street.

Ian Grabiner, chief executive of Arcadia, said: “This is an incredibly sad day for all of our colleagues as well as our suppliers and our many other stakeholders.

“The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, including the forced closure of our stores for prolonged periods, has severely impacted on trading across all of our brands.

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“Throughout this immensely challenging time our priority has been to protect jobs and preserve the financial stability of the group in the hope that we could ride out the pandemic and come out fighting on the other side.

“Ultimately, however, in the face of the most difficult trading conditions we have ever experienced, the obstacles we encountered were far too severe.”