The administrators who sold Claire’s to Modella Capital last year are estimating fees of £7.2m for their work, according to new filings, with the jewellery and accessories chain having collapsed a second time barely four months after its rescue.
The filings show that managing directors at Interpath, the advisory group overseeing the administration, have been charging £1,515 an hour since the spring. The total depends on creditors approving a £3.2m increase in fees, which arises partly from the extra complications created by Claire’s second administration.
Those charging the top rate include Will Wright, Interpath’s UK chief executive, and Chris Pole, head of its Midlands and South team. The average hourly rate across all Interpath staff working on the administration is about £883, the filings show.
Claire’s UK entered administration in August 2025 after its US parent sought bankruptcy protection, a process Business Matters reported at the time. Interpath then sold the majority of the business and assets to Modella Capital, the Mayfair-based private equity firm, in September 2025.
The deal went sour quickly and the retailer failed for the second time in January. All of its roughly 300 standalone stores in the UK and Ireland were closed, with the loss of more than 2,000 jobs, ending three decades on the British high street.
Lower-ranking creditors such as suppliers and landlords were left millions of pounds out of pocket. The accounts confirm that unsecured creditors are unlikely to recover any of what they are owed, with earlier estimates putting those debts at about £11.9m.
A spokesman for the joint administrators said the fees reflect “what was an uncharacteristically complex and demanding engagement”.
The spokesman said that during a 15-week trading period from appointment in August 2025, the administrators “were responsible for managing more than 2,000 employees and in excess of 300 stores across multiple jurisdictions”.
“Unusually, the purchaser of the majority of Claire’s Accessories’ business and assets subsequently entered administration itself,” Interpath said.
“These unique circumstances required a level of oversight and involvement well beyond that of a typical administration, reflecting the scale and complexity of the work necessary to protect value for creditors throughout the process.”
For the Claire’s deal, Modella created a new company, Cauki Limited, which itself entered an administration overseen by advisers at Kroll. Separate filings earlier this year show Cauki collapsed owing an estimated £10.6m to unsecured creditors, which is not expected to be returned.
Kroll has logged time costs of about £2.2m for the six months between 26 January and 25 July, an average rate of £510 an hour. None of this has been paid to date, and it is understood that any final fee payment would be significantly lower.
Modella has built a reputation for engineering a series of high-profile takeovers of distressed retailers, some of which later collapsed. The firm presided over the collapse of The Original Factory Shop, and placed WH Smith’s former high street shops into an aggressive restructuring after rebranding them as TG Jones, a process that included plans to shut up to 150 TG Jones stores.
Modella declined to comment.
Amy Ingham
Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College's journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel's nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.
