Northampton's Debenhams could soon be owned by India's richest man

Staff at Debenhams in Northampton could soon be working for India’s richest man.

Mukesh Ambani, whose Reliance Retail group also owns world famous London toy store Hamleys, is reportedly looking to make a bid to acquire the troubled fashion-to-homeware chain.

According to Sky News, Ambani is among a small number of interested parties in talks about acquiring part or all of Debenhams, which has been up for sale since July as part of its administration process.

Ambani is chairman, managing director and the largest shareholder of Reliance Industries, which owns Reliance Retail – the same retail empire that bought Hamleys in a £70million deal last year.

Retail Gazette today reports that speculation has been rife that Next, Mike Ashley's Fraser’s Group, and a Chinese consortium are also mulling over bids for Debenhams, which went into administration in April.

But chairman Mark Gifford told BBC News earlier this month that Debenhams is far from the brink of collapse and insisted that trading has been better than expected since lockdown ended.

Gifford also stressed that Debenhams was in no rush to complete a sale, although he conceded it was to remain in administration until early next year.

Northampton's store survived a cull of 20 stores, slashing an estimated 6,500 jobs, after the pandemic gripped the UK in March – 2,500 of which was confirmed in August.

That followed more store closures earlier this year as part of restructure which followed a rescue deal last year.

Debenhams now trades from 124 UK stores — including one in the Drapery it has occupied since the 1950s.