Apparently they were both for sale pre-CV but the sale has now fallen through (unsurprisingly).
I am sad because I used to buy quite a lot from both, particularly Warehouse. But again, quality seems to have really suffered in recent years and prices increased. Plus neither had their online shopping act sorted. You couldn't do collect+ or similar and as someone who works full time and doesn't have either store nearby it was pretty useless.
I'm hoping, in the long term, a lot of these big brands failing will open the doors for some smaller players to grow market share as the high street has usually been quite hostile to newcomers. I also hope it means those newcomers/survivors will be more wary of private equity companies and of selling their stores.
(On the latter point I heard an interesting R4 interview with the man who owns Richer Sounds, one of the few brands who own all their physical stores, rather than rent. His opinion was that the high street killed itself when all the big names sold their stores for huge amounts to companies and became leaseholders. They got the big bucks in once, and their share holders were very happy, but now we are in harder times they have no wiggle room.)