Two weeks before the beauty retailer Bodycare went into administration, in September, its shelves began emptying.
Drivers say they were given instructions to move 1,000 pallets of stock out of a warehouse in Buckshaw Village, in Lancashire. Ten lorries believed to have been booked by Bodycare’s CEO, Tony Brown, were loaded up and driven to two warehouses several miles away.
The drivers claim more than half the transported stock was hidden in the warehouses in order to be resold later, after Bodycare’s business operations ceased on 5 September.
These employees were given no warning that the chain’s 147 shops were about to close. Documents filed at Companies House show that it owed £37.5m when it fell into administration, causing the loss of around 1,400 jobs.
Bodycare’s collapse has led to calls from former employees and MPs to investigate its owner for an alleged pattern of business misconduct. According to sources who spoke to the Observer, and who share the concerns of those MPs, Baaj Capital – which is owned and run by the brothers Jaswinder and Dalwinder Singh, along with Brown – acquires businesses on the brink of collapse in order to pile them up with debt, transfer and preserve their assets, hide signs of closure from staff, go into administration and start them all over again as new, restructured entities.
This "phoenix" strategy is not illegal but it has raised concerns that staff and suppliers were repeatedly blindsided, leaving taxpayers to foot some of the bill. There was no response from Baaj Capital, Brown, the Singh brothers or Bodycare to repeated requests for comment.
At least 10 companies have been closed as a result of Baaj Capital rescue deals, while 20 active companies are listed on Companies House under Jaswinder Singh’s name and registered to his Castleford operating address.
Hundreds of former employees, as well as the MPs Stephen Timms and Paul Foster, are seeking transparency and calling for a government Insolvency Service inquiry into the West Yorkshire-based family company, which was established in 2019. Timms told the service Bodycare staff had been dismissed without consultation, with their wages withheld and pension contributions for 2025 unpaid.
As first reported in the Lancashire Lead, Timms wrote that "former employees are troubled by what they describe as a pattern of behaviour by Baaj Capital across multiple companies and estimate that the cumulative cost to the government from similar collapses may exceed £200m".
The Singhs bought Bodycare in July 2022 from Graham and Margaret Blackledge, who founded the brand as a Lancashire market stall in 1970. Brown, a retail veteran, is a former director at the now defunct companies BHS, Jane Norman and Peacocks.
Initially, Baaj Capital’s rescue deal appeared to save Bodycare from the fate of other British high street chains such as Claire’s, the Body Shop and Ted Baker, which have all closed their stores. It posted a turnover of £132.5m for 2024, with a plan for 40 new stores and an initial public offering (IPO).
Yet these plans were paused in June as Bodycare’s growth stalled. It blamed the government for "too much risk and uncertainty" in a climate of "increased costs and legislation".
Three former staff, who gathered testimonies from some 100 former Bodycare colleagues, told The Observer the chain’s original stores were left with faulty lifts and toilets and leaking roofs while up to £200,000 had gone towards fitting and stocking each new shop. One former employee described Jaswinder Singh’s broader business practices as “unethical”.
Previous suppliers and staff say Baaj was using capital from previous companies' failures to put into its next project.
A former supplier for the logistics company Huboo alleges this is part of the "Baaj playbook". He lost £200,000 worth of stock when the warehouse company entered administration and was taken over by Baaj and Atalla Capital for £9. "I appreciate that investors will say they "rescued" jobs and gave a future to a viable cause," he says. "But in my case and many others, it was the small businesses who could least afford it, plus employees chasing wages and pensions, and HMRC."
In recent weeks, Charles Denton, former CEO of the Body Shop and Molton Brown, has swooped in to rescue Bodycare. Its relaunch is set to preserve several hundred jobs and relaunch up to 50 shops. Following administrator proposals, all staff are now due to be paid an estimated £2.2m owed in wages and costs.
Even so, former employees of Bodycare remain baffled. "[Jaswinder] Singh ruined it," one ex-employee says. "This was a company that was making millions year on year. It came out of lockdown and hit the ground running. We sold beauty and medicines that people needed, and it was priced correctly."
The investigation launched by Timms has found that many staff who worked for the company for decades are now relying on food banks and benefits.
Timms says Baaj has been using acquisition structures to avoid liabilities and shift costs on to the taxpayer. “It is believed this was achieved without meaningful operational investment, and that the company’s credit was subsequently maximised through loan and supplier orders before defaulting on payments,” he said.
The Insolvency Service has yet to respond.
Photograph by Alamy