Following the news that the historic UK franchise Debenhams will be going into liquidation by the first quarter of 2021, the local franchisee for Malta’s two Debenhams stores, United Department Stores Limited, acknowledged that the “winding up of the UK company will affect the availability of product for sale”.

In a Malta Stock Exchange announcement providing information to the market, United Group reconfirmed that the two Debenhams stores locally are operated independently from the UK under a franchise agreement.

“Nonetheless operations are intrinsically tied to the UK Company for the supply of merchandise.”

United Group went on to note that because of the dependency on the supply of merchandise, “the winding up of the UK Company will affect the availability of product for sale”.

“At this stage executive management are monitoring the developments in the UK closely, and are assessing options in hand for the replacement of the Debenhams franchise,” reads the MSE statement.

The Group yesterday confirmed that for the immediate future, local trading operations will continue as normal in both stores, one at the Point in Sliema and the other at Mainstreet Paola.

In spite of this setback, United Finance p.l.c. wishes to inform the market that although 2020 was a challenging year, the Company has sufficient resources to meet all of its obligations when they fall due.

The Board of Directors also reiterated that they remain vigilant on the developments with a view of taking more measures as may be appropriate to ensure the viability of the Company and the Group.