The man who started making fish pies on his kitchen table served up healthy sales of £133m last year, despite staff and cost issues … and the problem of being outside the EU There was a time when Charlie Bigham would regularly get calls from customers demanding to know whether he really existed or was just a made-up front for his fresh ready meals company. Not only is Bigham real – it’s his face on the pack – he is still the majority owner and a full-time worker at the business he began, appropriately enough, at his kitchen table in 1996 ..read more

Aurelius, the German restructuring specialist, has broken up two other UK retailers Aurelius, the German restructuring specialist which bought The Body Shop last year and has now put it into administration, had previously broken up two other UK retailers. Staff at the ethical cosmetics group fear it will be next, with more than 2,200 jobs and 200 stores at risk. Aurelius, a specialist in distressed companies, has been active in the UK for some time. It bought the parent of the Lloyds Pharmacy chain in 2022, TV shopping business Ideal Shopping Direct in 2018 and the European and UK arm of retai ..read more

Anita Roddick’s Aladdin’s caveSelling the nationTrigger happyMichael JaystonWithout merit I wanted to have my ears pierced. It was 1976, and a friend in Brighton, Stephanie, said I should come to this new shop in the North Laine there. My ears were pierced in the back of the shop, although not by Anita Roddick. The tiny shop was an Aladdin’s cave of small bottles and jars, all full of new smells and interesting possibilities. RIP The Body Shop (Zoe Williams, 13 February). Lynn Wiseman Lewes, East Sussex • So the sale of a Downing Street visitors’ book from the Margaret Thatcher era h ..read more

More than 2,200 jobs at risk less than three months after cosmetics chain was bought by German firm Aurelius ‘Scent of a generation’: the Body Shop products consumers loved What went wrong as The Body Shop files for administration The Body Shop has collapsed into administration in the UK less than three months after it was taken over by a private equity company, in a move that puts more than 2,200 jobs at risk at the cosmetics chain. Aurelius, the German company that bought The Body Shop for £207m in November, said it had been unable to revive the fortunes of the business after dismal tradin ..read more

Process likely to lead to job losses and store closures, and threaten source of sales for global producers When Anita Roddick sold The Body Shop in 2006, she left behind not just a thriving cosmetics and skincare empire but living proof that a business could follow strict ethical guidelines and still make healthy profits. But on Monday, the private equity-owned company filed the intention to appoint administrators ..read more

Some of chain’s 200 UK stores expected to shut following weak trading over Christmas and January The Body Shop, the skincare and cosmetics retailer founded by the campaigner Anita Roddick in the 1970s, is set to appoint administrators in a move likely to result in lost jobs and shop closures. The pan-European private equity investor Aurelius bought the company six weeks before Christmas but said trading over the festive period and early January had been weak ..read more

With a former Vogue editor running jumble sales, and fashionistas vowing to buy fewer clothes, attitudes to style are changing fast It’s 5pm on Friday night and a group of volunteers have gathered in an old, cold church in Willesden, north-west London, making last-minute adjustments to rails of floaty dresses, piles of sweaters, boxes of hats, shoes and scarves. Hosted by former Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman and novelist Zadie Smith, this isn’t any old charity jumble sale but a must-go event that sums up current trends in how people buy their clothes. The provenance of much of the merchandise ..read more

From realising your personal style differs to the one prescribed by Instagram to discovering the joys of a wool de-piller – here are five people who made that pledge a year ago, on what they bought and what it taught them I love fashion, enjoy following trends, keeping up with new brands and dressing up, but I have always bought too much. So when a report last year found that no amount of recycled materials, regenerative agriculture or innovative fabrics are going to make enough of an impact to keep global heating at bay, I decided to embark on a new way of getting dressed. Those living in the ..read more

Adapting business laws to include benefits other than profit in decision-making could add £149bn to UK economy, says Demos thinktank Britain’s economy could receive a £149bn boost from a change to UK business laws that would ensure companies put social, economic and environmental benefits at the heart of their decision-making, according to a report. With the UK on course for the second lowest growth rate in the G7 group of leading economies in 2023, the study by the thinktank Demos said it was clear that cutting taxes or raising public spending had not been effective at driving economic growth ..read more

Majority of shareholders reject proposal to spin off Asian operations, after hour of disruption from campaigners Business live – latest updates HSBC has defeated an attempt to split up the bank after a majority of investors rejected a plan backed by its largest shareholder at the bank’s annual general meeting, which was heavily disrupted by climate protests. The bank’s chair, Mark Tucker, announced that a majority of shareholders had backed him and the board in rejecting the proposal to spin off HSBC’s Asian operations, he said at the meeting in Birmingham on Friday ..read more