POPULAR women's fashion retailer This Fashion will stay open after all.

It has reached an out-of-court settlement with a former supplier which had gone to court in a bid to wind it up.

Both sides have agreed to settle privately the dispute over a debt of about $250,000, which supplier A-Go Fashion Trading said it was owed.

This Fashion has made an upfront cheque payment of $85,000 to its former supplier; monthly instalments of $25,000 will follow, so the debt will be cleared before the year is out.

A-Go Fashion successfully sued This Fashion in January for $247,000 worth of clothes shipments.

When This Fashion, which has 65 outlets here, did not pay up, A-Go Fashion asked the court to have it wound up.

This Fashion appealed against the January court decision but, with the kinks ironed out, the appeal has been ditched.

The publicity over the case had left many of the chain's customers worried about the status of their memberships. It has 300,000 members.

Now, the chain's managing director Richard Teo just wants to put the episode behind him. He said: 'Forget it. We don't want this to drag on further.'

His business was never in danger of closing, he told The Straits Times.

Last year, it opened 25 stores.

'All this was financed with our own money. We never borrowed from the banks. Despite this, we still turned in a $2 million profit,' he said.

Turnover was $46 million last year.

Its outlets under the This, Coax and Alano banners rang up more than $7 million in sales in January alone, he said. Mr Teo added that he was exploring overseas franchises.

But it seems former supplier A-Go Trading has no place in This Fashion's plans from here on.

Until their relationship soured, A-Go Trading's Louis Ng and Mr Teo were firm business partners. They were said to have been good friends, meeting for coffee, karaoke sessions and seafood dinners.

Now, they are not even talking to each other.

Mr Teo said: 'We were friends for more than 10 years. I treated him as a brother, and gave him a lot of business. He even supplied our plastic bags and clothes hangers.'

Mr Ng said when contacted: 'This is what he says. But if he didn't benefit from our partnership, why would he have helped me?'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on May 9, 2008

Is this article useful to you?