Coast is a British women's clothing retail chain, founded in 1996.[1]
Coast was owned by Aurora Fashions, along with fashion brands Warehouse and Oasis.[2] Aurora in turn was owned by the Icelandic Kaupthing Bank, and had been in administration for some time, with the administrators looking for potential buyers, with a possible valuation of not more than £100 million for Coast, Warehouse, and Oasis reported in November 2016.[3] In April 2017, The Daily Telegraph reported that the three brands employ up to 5,000 people and were attracting interest from private equity, who would likely close some of the stores.[4] Retail Week speculated that the future for brands like Coast will be in department store concessions and online, rather than stand-alone stores.[5]
In 2016, Coast had a pre-tax profit of £1.3m, following a pre-tax loss of £10.8m in 2015.[4]
As of September 2017, they had 20 stand-alone stores in the UK, five in Ireland, two in Kuwait, and two in the UAE, as well as numerous in-house concessions in Beatties, Debenhams, House of Fraser and John Lewis.[6]