Realigning Debt Structure to Fund Store Expansion for a High-End Ethnic Fashion Retailer

A Corporate Finance Case Study — Loans & Debt Advisory

Client Snapshot

A high-end ethnic fashion retail brand with an established store network, planning further expansion, whose existing short-term and long-term borrowings had drifted out of alignment with how the business used them.

The Challenge

Working capital facilities were funding what were long-term needs, and long-term debt wasn’t sized correctly against the inventory-heavy, seasonal nature of fashion retail. Layered on top of this mismatch was a fresh requirement: funding for a new round of store rollouts, without repeating the same structural error.

What We Did

• Reviewed the entire existing borrowing book and re-mapped each facility against what it was actually financing — inventory cycles, fit-outs, or store capex.
• Designed a realigned capital structure: short-term working capital lines sized to seasonal inventory needs, and long-term term loans matched to store capex and lease periods.
• Ran a competitive process across multiple private banks for the new facilities, rather than defaulting to the incumbent lender.
• Negotiated pricing and terms across the competing banks in parallel and coordinated documentation and drawdown across the final combination of facilities chosen.

The Outcome

Our balance sheet finally matched how the business actually runs, and we funded the new stores without repeating old mistakes.

— Client