Debenhams, 243-year-old UK department store chain, liquidated in 2021

Debenhams was founded in London in 1778 as a draper's shop and grew over 243 years into one of Britain's largest department store chains, with 178 locations and 25,000 employees at its peak. For much of the 20th century it was a fixture of the British high street, selling clothing, homeware, beauty products and furniture under both branded concessions and its own labels.

The trouble began in 2003, when a private equity consortium (CVC, TPG and Merrill Lynch) bought Debenhams in a £1.8 billion leveraged buyout. The new owners extracted over £1 billion through sale-and-leaseback deals on the company's properties — leaving Debenhams paying rent on stores it had once owned. This debt burden sat on top of rising competition from online retailers like ASOS and Boohoo, which had no rent bills at all.

By 2018 the damage was visible: Debenhams announced a pre-tax loss of £491 million, its worst ever. It began closing stores and cutting jobs, but its debt and rent obligations left it unable to invest in the online experience customers now expected. In April 2019 it entered a pre-pack administration that handed control to lenders. A second administration followed in April 2020 as COVID-19 shut down retail, and in December 2020 the business was put into liquidation.