End of sale talks pushes Trouva owner Made.com closer to administration

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 26, 2022

Made.com, the company that seemed to be riding high earlier this year when it acquired Trouva, is close to collapse after various potential bidders failed to come up with a deal by a deadline the company had imposed.

The company is a furniture specialist but its Trouva buy also brought it into the fashion sphere. However, regardless of the category that consumers might want to shop, many can’t at the moment as the business has temporarily suspended new orders.

The company is seen as being on the edge of administration after all of the “select number of parties” that were invited to table offers backed away from a deal.

Made said that it currently has no buyout offers or funding deals available to it, and although its formal sale process is ongoing, there’s “no certainty that an offer will be made, nor as to what the terms of any offer may be”.

It added that “if further funding cannot be raised, or a firm offer is not received before the company's cash reserves are fully depleted, the board will take the appropriate steps to preserve value for creditors”.

It had said when it kicked off the sale process that it needed between £45 million and £70 million to be able to trade through the next 18 months.

It could well be that potential buyers see better opportunities if the company does go into administration as they’d be able to be able to buy it without all of the commitments that taking it on as a going concern would include.

But despite the collapse prospects and the fact that the firm is requesting a suspension of its share trading on the London Stock Exchange, the share price rose as much as 36% at one point on Wednesday morning.  

However, that came after a 90%+ plunge on Tuesday and at less than 7p a share with a market value of under £2.3 million, it’s a huge comedown from the £1.99 each the shares traded at on its stock exchange debut in mid-2021.

It’s also a change from the confidence back in the spring when it bought Trouva and talked about advancing the group's growth strategy, keeping it as a standalone brand, and building out the Trouva tech hub in Portugal “to create a new centre of excellence”.