British clothing retailer Monsoon has agreed to a £755 million (€1.1 billion) management buyout led by its non-executive chairman, Peter Simon.

The offer from Drillgreat, a newly incorporated company formed specifically to acquire Monsoon, is worth 424p per share, a 4 per cent premium to its closing price on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday.

The deal is Mr Simon's second attempt to take the company private. He currently has about a 63 per cent stake in the firm.

In March 2006, Mr Simon dropped plans to proceed with a possible offer after minority shareholders saw off his attempt.

Monsoon also said that trading since the start of the financial year on May 27th had continued to be very poor, with total sales in the first 17 weeks down 9 per cent.

"The outlook in the run-up to the important Christmas period . . . remains challenging," it added.

Monsoon has suffered a torrid past couple of years, with the latest set of full-year results even worse than the previous year's, which were described at the time as the "most challenging in the company's history".

A major campaign fronted by celebrity Liz Hurley failed to turn around the group's fortunes and yesterday's update revealed that both UK and international earnings have continued to take a hit.

Monsoon, founded in 1973, started trading initially as a ladies fashion chain. It added the Accessorize chain in 1984, followed in the mid-1990s by a childrenswear line. The company has 858 stores, of which 24 are in Ireland, employing 423 people.

It opened its first Irish store in the 1990s and has a flagship outlet on Dublin's Grafton Street. - (Reuters/PA)