Family buys back Bevilles chain

The collapsed Bevilles jewellery store chain has been purchased back by the original founding family, with hopes smaller format stores will improve the company’s earnings prospects.

Bevilles was placed into the hands of voluntary administrators PPB and a creditors’ meeting had been scheduled for yesterday for a vote on a restructuring proposal from the Beville family.

The company employed 477 people across 27 stores, all of them located in shopping centres, and was losing money with no prospect of turning the situation around. It will now have 250 staff with 16 stores across three states.

Michelle Beville, who heads the new Bevilles Corp, said the new company structure would be smaller, with jewellery-only stores focusing on diamonds and a range of watches.

“The pilot program in Liverpool, NSW and Highpoint, Victoria, proves that the smaller, smarter, new-look, jewellery-only format is the right strategy for the brand to move forward with,” she said.

Ms Beville said the proposal included retaining the customer rewards program, the Eternity Club, the Bevilles brand, and as much staff as possible.

She said the number of redundancies would depend on how quickly negotiations could be finalised with landlords, how many stores would be closed and whether the restructure plan was endorsed by creditors.