SCORES of Hampshire staff at troubled fashion chain Etam are waiting to learn their future after Bhs billionaire Philip Green moved swiftly to carve up the business little more than a week after buying it.

Mr Green is selling on 47 shops to fashion chain Monsoon and 20 to his associate Tom Hunter, whose West Coast Capital includes the Office shoes chain. This leaves Mr Green with about 133 Etam shops, at least 15 of which he plans to convert into Top Shop outlets.

"It will take Top Shop into towns and cities where it does not currently trade," Mr Green said. "We're still analysing the rest of the chain. The business was in a horrible mess."

No one was available from Mr Green's Arcadia group to comment on the future of the chain's five stores in south Hampshire - Eastleigh, Southampton, Fareham, Cowes and Portsmouth.

The wider Etam group, which has more than 2,500 outlets across 30 countries including China, Finland, Bahrain, Lebanon and New Zealand, put its UK business up for sale in January after a prolonged sales slump continued over Christmas. Operating losses in the UK totalled £21.8m in the year to December 31 following a 7.2 per cent fall in like-for-like sales.

It is thought that Mr Green paid less than £10 million for the Etam business.