Department store chain House of Fraser has appointed turnaround specialists to advise it on a restructuring plan which could involve store closures and job losses.

The retailer has called in KPMG to examine all options, including an insolvency process called a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), the BBC has reported.

House of Fraser has 59 stores, including Cavendish House in Cheltenham and its Cirencester store, and employs 6,000 staff and 11,500 concession staff.

In January it asked landlords to cut rents, after poor Christmas trading.

Under a CVA, HoF would again try to get agreement from landlords to reduce rents and possibly shut some of its 59 stores.

No decision has yet been made on the turnaround route it will pursue, the BBC says.

In a statement a spokesperson said the chain could only confirm that they had appointed KPMG and were "working closely with them to look at options that best support our transformation programme".

House of Fraser was acquired by Chinese conglomerate Sanpower in 2014.

In December, the Moody's credit agency downgraded its credit rating for House of Fraser.

It pointed to the company's weak results for the first three quarters of 2017, which it said were due to "both challenging market conditions and company-specific factors".

Disruption while House of Fraser introduced a new web platform and the underperformance of its in-house brands had weighed on the business, Moody's said.

Punchline says: "Cavendish House is a major retail outlet in the centre of Cheltenham and House of Fraser is a major player in Cirencester as well. If something happened to them it would have quite a devastating effect on the retail of the two towns. On a secondary level, if Cavendish House does survive it needs to put its own house in order as it will be fighting the likes of John Lewis in Cheltenham."