Next buys Cath Kidston for £8.5m

Retailer Next confirmed on Tuesday that it has agreed to buy the brand name, domain names and intellectual property of Cath Kidston from the administrators for £8.5m.

The cathkidston.com domain will be licenced back to the administrators for up to 12 weeks to effect stock clearance, prior to relaunch under Next’s ownership.

Cath Kidston, which was founded by the eponymous Kidston in 1993, was acquired by Baring Private Equity Asia in 2016. It went into administration in 2020, with the loss of 1,000 jobs, but was relaunched shortly afterwards by BPEA after it struck a pre-pack insolvency deal. Most of its UK high street estate was closed under the deal.

At the time of its sale to Hilco in June last year, Cath Kidston said that following its "pivot" during Covid-19, it was now performing "strongly", with orders from international and UK franchisees and wholesale partners up 40% in the year to March 2022.