The director of Miniso Master Franchisee, Ben Yip, is also understood to be “exploring options to raise further funding”. No other third-party entity has expressed interest in acquiring the stores so far.

“The objective of the administration is to preserve the business for not only the employees [but also] other stakeholders and obviously franchisees in this scenario as well. We’re all working together to try and create an outcome where the business survives.”

A creditors report is expected to be completed by the end of next week, with a second creditors meeting expected the week after.

Miniso Master Franchisee handed the reins of the business over to Grant Thornton administrators Philip Campbell-Wilson and Said Jahani in July 2020 after COVID-19 lockdowns hit the variety store hard.

Only two unprofitable stores (Southland, Victoria, and Merrylands, NSW) out of 32 stores had to close and about 100 jobs were saved as a result of the restructure, in which administrators restructured rental agreements with landlords.

Creditors claimed more than $18 million, a figure that would have become $49 million if Miniso had entered liquidation and terminated store leases.

“That’s the rock and roll of retail, unfortunately,” said a figure close to the restructure who requested anonymity.

“When you come out of a restructure, you need a couple of things to go their way, such as consumer sentiment coming back. They always need funding out of the back of a deed of company arrangement.”

Miniso was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Ye Guofu in 2013 and opened its first store in Guangzhou before expanding to Hong Kong, Singapore in 2015, and Malaysia before setting up in Australia.

The variety retail chain store sells cosmetics, stationery, toys, kitchenware and other household goods and has been inspired by retailers such as Muji and Daiso. Its logo and branding colours resemble that of Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo and its logo initially featured katakana in its logo.

In August 2022, the company apologised for pretending to be Japanese and said it was a “proud Chinese brand through and through” and would “de-Japanise” by March 2023.

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