Made.com to enter voluntary liquidation
Made.com has announced that the company will be placed into voluntary liquidation, after a painful few months for the online homeware retailer.
Made’s board recommended the process in December, following its purchase by Next a month earlier.
Members Voluntary Liquidation is a process in which a solvent company can choose to wind up its assets, in contrast to insolvent liquidations which leave debts unpaid.
The shareholder’s poll returned a vote which was over 99% in favour of liquidation.
The company appointed Steven Sherry and Emma Cray of PricewaterhouseCoopers as joint liquidators, and Nicola Thompson (chief executive officer), Patrick Lewis (chief financial officer), Matthew Price (non-executive director), Claire Valoti (non-executive director), George McCulloch (non-executive director) and Ning Li (non-executive director) have resigned as directors of the Board and any Group companies.
Made.com was founded in 2011 and described itself as the ‘leading digitally native lifestyle brand in home, connecting designers and makers to customers through technology.’
The company saw a surge in sales during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, as people confined to their homes turned to more digital forms of retail. Made.com saw a 30% year-on-year increase to their sales up to £315m in 2020, and enjoyed a 63% increase to £110m in the first three months of 2021.
However, the last few months have been exceptionally difficult for the retailer, as sales declined with more people returning to the high street, eventually reaching a point where it stopped taking orders.
Made.com formally terminated a sales process in November after no buyer could be found to purchase the company.