British shoe brand Clarks has agreed to sell a majority stake to a Hong-Kong based private equity company in a ￡100m deal, as the group’s founding family cedes control for the first time in its 195-year-old history.

C&J Clark, the company behind the brand, on Wednesday said LionRock Capital was set to become its largest shareholder with an investment that would help “grow the Clarks brand globally and most notably in China and across the rest of Asia Pacific”. 

The group had been grappling with heavy losses before the pandemic and recently launched a company voluntary agreement, an insolvency proceeding that allows businesses to renegotiate debts. Clarks called the CVA, through which it was hoping to cease rent payments on 60 of its 320 stores, an “absolute necessity”, but stressed it had not announced any store closures.