Daily Mail reports Duchess of Cambridge’s brother James Middleton’s food firm Boomf is set to go into administration owing £2million
There’s confusion over the future of Boomf, the company with Royal connections that sold personalised marshmallows after it has been widely reported the business was about to enter administration.
The Daily Mail reported that Boomf was carrying almost £2million of accumulated trading losses, with ongoing losses down from £3million.
Unlike his parents’ party paraphernalia firm which has made them very wealthy Mr Middleton, 34, who set up Boomf in 2013 has apparently been a flop with a string of creditors demanding payment. Administration will potentially find a buyer or the possibility of liquidation is on the cards.
The Daily Mail’s Richard Eden reported: “Boomf’s investors include James Matthews, the husband of Mr Middleton’s sister Pippa, greetings card company Moonpig founder Nick Jenkins and former VoucherCodes supremo Duncan Jennings. Despite the retained balance sheet losses, the company was £1.3million in the black at the date of the accounts, with £3.2million in share capital offsetting the ongoing losses. Last weekend, Boomf was reported to have been ‘sold’ to a photography company, Splento. Its chief executive, Roman Grigoriev, declined to say how much Splento had paid. He said: ‘I cannot possibly comment on whether investors might lose money.’ He said Splento would keep using the name of Boomf, which also sold greetings cards that explode in a shower of confetti when opened.”
Ian Carrotte of ICSM said the charitable explanation was the downturn in the economy caused by the Covid-19 crisis. However he added: “Any business that size cannot function with debt running into the millions. Questions will be asked as to how such a huge amount of debt was accumulated when business was flat or clearly not booming. Something went seriously wrong with Middleton’s business plan.”
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