Boardwear brand O’Neill is in talks to buy stores from the administrators of Sandcity as it aims to roll-out new-look shops in the UK.

In December O’Neill will open a store at Bluewater, its first new store in this country since operations of its wholesale business transferred from Blacks to O’Neill Europe earlier this year.

Operations were transferred to O’Neill Europe as part of a wider exit by Blacks from its loss-making boardwear business. O’Neill Europe set up a UK subsidiary that is opening the Bluewater flagship.

Blacks last month placed its Sandcity arm into administration and administrator KPMG is understood to be in talks to sell four to five shops - which were run by Blacks under the O’Neill fascia -
to O’Neill.

KPMG confirmed this week it has closed one of the stores in administration, in Glasgow. It would not comment on talks with any interested parties. However, any stores not bought by O’Neill could be closed.

O’Neill’s Bluewater store model is inspired by its founder Jack O’Neill - the design reflects his own Pacific coast house in Santa Cruz, California. The same look will be adopted in any other stores O’Neill opens or takes over, as well as in a planned roll out of shop-in-shops and franchised stores.

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