Next buys Made.com after collapse
Next has purchased Made.com for £3.4m, after the furniture retailer fell into administration.
Parent company Made.com Design Ltd (MDL) appointed administrators from PWC LLP on November 8.
Since their appointment, Next has entered into an agreement to acquire MADE’s brand, domain names and intellectual property. Decisions about other assets are yet to be made.
500 jobs are at risk.
MADE’s ordinary shares were suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange on November 1 after the company stopped taking customer orders in October.
Attempts to find a buyer prior to administration were unsuccessful, according to MDL.
However, it was revealed on Monday that MADE’s former CEO, Ning Li, submitted three attempts to rescue the company, all of which were rejected.
Made.com was founded in 2011 as a digitally native lifestyle brand and saw a boom in sales during the COVID-19 pandemic as more people shopped from home.
The company saw a £775m valuation on the London Stock Exchange in June 2021.
The business has seen a steady decline in sales as more customers return to high street shopping, which saw a valuation of only around £2m by last week.
MADE’s chief executive, Nicola Thompson, issued an apology for the impact of the company going into administration: “MADE is a much loved brand that was highly successful and well adapted, over many years, to a world of low inflation, stable consumer demand, reliable and cost efficient global supply chains and limited geo-political volatility.
“That world vanished, the business could not survive in its current iteration, and we could not pivot fast enough.”