Longstanding fashion retailer Cue Clothing Co has been put up for sale by British investment firm Hilco Capital, just 16 months after it was acquired.

With three stores in New Zealand, as well as a concession stand in Ballantynes Department Store, the Sydney-founded clothing brand owns the Cue and Veronika Maine brands. Its sale by Hilco – first reported by The Australian Financial Review (AFR) – comes after the British firm managed to reduce Cue’s losses from $17 million to $6.2 million in one year.

Cue Clothing also managed to grow its sales by 5 per cent to $124.7 million across the same period.

FTI Consulting has been appointed by Hilco to oversee the selling process. When advertising the sale, FTI said that progress has been made in Cue’s leadership team, product offering and operations.

Around two decades into its time in New Zealand, Cue began to pivot towards a digital model through its “endless aisle” screens inside stores.

The result of this strategy saw its online revenues in the country soar by 300 per cent between 2018 and 2019, which led to the reduction of its physical footprint from a pre-pandemic peak of 11.