LK Bennett creditors owed nearly £32m

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jul 31, 2019

The news around LK Bennett may have gone fairly quiet since the failed company was acquired out of administration by its Chinese franchise partner Rebecca Feng, but on Wednesday it emerged that the company went into administration owing almost £32 million to its creditors.

The exact figure is £31.9 million with the UK tax authorities owed £1.9 million of that.

The figures emerged in a report filed at Companies House by administrators Ernst & Young (EY), which showed the bulk of the money is owed to creditors in the UK and Ireland, with a little over £600,000 owed to creditors in mainland Europe and to those trading in US dollars.

But it’s believed that the amount available to pay unsecured creditors will be significantly under £1 million.

Preferential creditors have fared better with main lender Wells Fargo having so far received £5.4 million of the more than £9 million that it was owed earlier this year.

Major creditors include founder Linda Bennett via Cavendish Holdco Limited of which she’s a director. Cavendish is owed more than £17 million.

EY has been acting as administrator to LK Bennett since March and oversaw the sale of the brand’s UK, Ireland and wholesale ops to Byland UK (the company set up by Rebecca Feng) for £9.8 million in April. 

The company had been loss-making prior to this with an EBITDA loss of £2.5 million in the five months to the end of December.