Next acquires Made.com’s brand and intellectual property

It comes after the online furniture retailer collapsed into administration earlier this week.  

Next offered £3.4m to buy the brand but has not taken on the company’s workers or any of its stock. The deal was advised by law firm Eversheds Sutherland.  

Due to the deal with Next only including the company’s brand name, domain names and intellectual property, administrators of Made.com - from PwC - had to make 320 people redundant, with an additional 79 employees who had resigned and were working their notice being released with immediate effect.  

Alongside this, while close to 4,500 customer orders in the UK and Europe are already with carriers and are being delivered, a large proportion of customer orders that are still in various stages of production will not be able to be delivered.

Zelf Hussain, a joint administrator at Made.com and a partner at PwC, said: "The company is a casualty of the headwinds being faced by all retailers, but more heavily by those selling big-ticket products.  

“A combination of factors including significant decline in consumer spending from cost of living pressures, rising import costs and continuing supply chain pressures has meant the business could no longer continue.  

“It is with real regret that redundancies will need to be made. We would like to thank all the employees for their hard work. We will continue to support those affected at this difficult time, including assisting the HR team’s efforts to secure staff new roles.  

“A small number of employees have been retained to support the orderly closure of the business.” 

Made.com’s chief executive Nicola Thompson added: “I would like to sincerely apologise to everyone - customers, employees, supplier partners, shareholders and all other stakeholders - impacted as a result of the business going into administration.  

“Over the past months we have fought tooth and nail to rapidly re-size the cost base, re-engineer the sourcing and stock model, and try every possible avenue to raise fresh financing and avoid this outcome.  

“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. The brand will now continue under new owners. I hope that a reconfigured Made will prove to be sustainable and will continue to be loved by customers.”