Yahoo Finance Jeweller to the stars Theo Fennell saved from administration
Upmarket jeweller Theo Fennell has been rescued a month after it was forced to call in administrators.
It is being bought by turnaround firm Endless' SME fund Enact in a £5m deal. The jeweller brought in BDO as administrator last month to search for prospective buyers.
It comes four years after it was taken off the London's junior AIM stock market and bought by a consortium of investors including Jon Moulton, the financier, and Sir Keith Mills, the entrepreneur behind the Nectar reward scheme.
The jeweler was set up by its eponymous owner in 1982, and has a flagship store in London's South Kensington. It is a favourite of Elton John the Beckhams, and makes classic jewellery and more eccentric pieces such as a Diet Coke bottle cast in solid silver and gold and diamond nappy pins.
It had said that the "burden" of fixed costs made it difficult to operate, and BDO said that it had to make some of the 54 staff redundant. The most recent filings from Companies House show the jeweler made a pre-tax loss of £2.5m on sales of £9.6m for the year ending 31 January 2016.
To reduce losses the company said it had entered a restructuring programme and would focus on core strengths, reducing its wholesale division and removing its concession from Harrods.
