Agent Provocateur’s chief executive Garry Hogarth has stepped down ahead of a possible sale of the luxury lingerie chain by its private equity owners 3i.

Mr Hogarth was with the business for nearly 10 years having joined when the company was still being run as a small enterprise of 14 shops. It is expected that he will be replaced by an external candidate who is set to be announced in the next few weeks.

The move follows a £727,000 review of the business by Goldman Sachs. Profits were lower by nearly a quarter last year due to the costs of the review and depreciation but sales jumped 16% and underlying profits, which exclude one-off costs, hit £10 million.

Chairman Chris Woodhouse commented: "It would be reasonable to expect that whoever takes it on will be with 3i during the next phase, but we won’t be selling any time soon and certainly not this year.  Garry’s done a fantastic job but in terms of being committed to the next stage, we agreed it was right that we part ways.”