Philip Green’s fashion empire is teetering on the brink of collapse after a crucial vote to rescue the business and secure 18,000 jobs was unexpectedly postponed after the billionaire failed to win enough support from his landlords.

The Arcadia Group – which includes Topshop, TopMan, Miss Selfridge, Evans, Wallis and Dorothy Perkins – said another vote would be held on 12 June in a bid to push through proposals for store closures and rent cuts. The extra time is designed to give Green more time to come up with a plan to win his landlords’ backing.

The company wants to close about 50 of its 570 UK stores and cut rents on up to 200 more.

The complex deal involves seven insolvency procedures known as company voluntary arrangements (CVAs). Each requires support from 75% of creditors and Green needed all seven to be passed to secure the future of the business.

When an initial tally of the vote made clear that more than one CVA had failed, Arcadia and its advisers at Deloitte adjourned the meeting.

The delay came after a marathon five-hour meeting with landlords, creditors and their representatives at County Hall in London. Voting was halted before the meeting was adjourned, and Green was understood to have been ringing landlords personally to plead with them to change their minds.

Arcadia had said in its CVA documentation that if the plan was not approved the company would be “highly likely, either immediately or after a short time period, to enter into insolvent administration or liquidation”.

Nick Bubb, an independent retail analyst, said: “ Good to see that some landlords were prepared to call [Green’s] bluff that Arcadia would go into administration tonight if the CVA wasn’t railroaded through.”

Several key landlords are understood to have been unhappy that a business with a very wealthy backer was asking them to take a financial hit. They believed that if Arcadia’s CVA restructure passed it would prompt dozens of other similar CVAs to follow.

Julian Lochrane, who attended the meeting to vote on behalf of three independent landlords, said they had all backed the deal as there was not much alternative.

He said landlords were “feeling pretty bruised” after a string of CVAs by high street retailers.

If Arcadia does collapse it will have a big impact on high streets across the UK and the wider fashion industry. Oliver Buhus of the clothing supplier Paragon, who attended the meeting on Wednesday, said it would have “severe implications for the industry as a whole”.

Arcadia and Deloitte now plan to meet key landlords who did not back the deal. They are understood to include Intu, Arcadia’s biggest landlord which owns 17 shopping centres across the UK including the Trafford centre in Manchester and Merry Hill in Dudley. Land Securities, the owner of Bluewater in Kent, is understood to have been another holdout, along with the City investors Aviva and M&G, which own substantial retail property assets.

Two major landlords, British Land, which owns Meadowhall in Sheffield and Hammerson, whose portfolio includes the Bullring in Birmingham and Brent Cross in London, backed the deal after winning concessions from Arcadia so that they could take back leases affected by the CVA if they found another tenant.

Green had tried to persuade landlords to back the CVAs with a promise to hand them a 20% stake in the business and £40m in compensation. He also promised to invest an extra £50m in cash in the stores as part of a £135m turnaround plan intended to help Arcadia compete with rivals such as Asos and Zara.

Ian Grabiner, Arcadia’s chief executive, said: “It is in the interests of all stakeholders that we adjourn today’s meetings to continue our discussions with landlords. We believe that with this adjournment, there is a reasonable prospect of reaching an agreement that the majority of landlords will support.”

Arcadia won the last minute support on Tuesday of the Pensions Regulator, the pension fund trustees and the pension protection fund, an industry-backed lifeboat scheme which protects the pensioners of collapsed businesses.

They backed the deal after the Green family and Arcadia pledged to put a total of £385m into the pension over three years.

The company has a pension deficit which could hit £750m, if the company collapses.