Struggling fashion retailer Monsoon is to be taken private by chairman Peter Simon and his family, who will buy the remaining 24.5 per cent of the company's shares.

Today, Simon’s investment vehicle Drillgreat released a statement recommending the acquisition of all the issued capital of Monsoon by Drillgreat for£755 million. Simon and his family own 75.5 per cent of the retailer’s shareholding.

Under the proposals to delist the retailer, non-family scheme shareholders will receive 424p a share in cash, which represents a premium of about 4 per cent on the closing price of 407.5p a share on September 27. Family scheme shareholders will receive one new Drillgreat share for each Monsoon share held.

Polygon Global Opportunities Masters Fund – which holds about 11 per cent of Monsoon’s shares, including those through contracts for differences – has confirmed it is supportive of the acquisition proposal. The proposal will be put to shareholders at an EGM in November.

In a statement ahead of its AGM today, Simon said that trading at Monsoon since the start of the new financial year on May 27 has continued to be very poor, as indicated in its preliminary results in July when the retailer said it faced “a deteriorating economic environment and rising interest rates”. Total sales for the first 17 weeks of the financial year to September 22 slid 2 per cent, on like-on-likes sales down 9 per cent, compared with a 6 per cent drop last year. Both UK and international sales suffered like-for-like sales declines.

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