Modella bought Wynsors in December — by June the chain needed a CVA

Wynsors World of Shoes was founded in Chesterfield in 1956 and grew into a value footwear chain of 47 stores across the north of England, known in particular for school shoes, employing about 400 people. Its last independent years were rough: a cyber-attack in 2025 disrupted core operations, and at the end of 2025 the chain was bought by Modella Capital, the Mayfair turnaround firm then on a high-street buying spree.

Modella was already the owner of TG Jones — the 480 former WH Smith high-street stores it had bought for £40 million — and the vehicle of Jamie Constable's Hay Wain family office, formed in 2022 as Tailer Debtco. Its pattern was by then familiar: acquire a struggling retailer quickly, then restructure hard. Within three months of the Wynsors deal, reports in March 2026 had Modella already weighing a sale of the chain.

On 2 June 2026 staff were briefed on a Company Voluntary Arrangement: a proposal to compromise what the company called 'unsustainable liabilities' while it kept trading. The terms asked for rent reductions at 36 of the 47 stores, with a number of shops expected to close altogether, and put more than 100 jobs — a quarter of the workforce — at risk. Chief executive Adam Foster cited an extremely difficult trading environment, fiscal and regulatory headwinds, and the operational damage of the cyber-attack.

Six months separated the takeover from the restructuring. The sale had changed the owner but not the lease burden, the debt or the market; the CVA was an admission that the chain's costs were still built for a level of trade it no longer had.