Kate’s brother leaves a debt trail of £800k
THE Duchess of Cambridge’s parents have made a fortune from their party paraphernalia firm, but her brother’s marshmallow business has now officially gone from Boomf to bust, leaving taxpayers £146,000 out of pocket and creditors owed a total of £800,000.
The business, which James Middleton, 34, set up in 2013 to sell personalised sweet treats, owed HMRC £146,306 when it went into administration last month, according to documents released this week.
The administration report reveals that Facebook is owed £55,892 and the Royal Mail £21,208, while the biggest loser is investment firm Forward Partners Venture Advance Ltd, which put in £350,000. Creditors are expected to lose £485,000 of the £651,000 owed to them.
Middleton’s company, Boomf, lost £686,000 in 2020, the report discloses. It had a number of high-profile investors including James Matthews, the husband of Middleton’s sister Pippa, greetings card company Moonpig founder Nick Jenkins and former VoucherCodes supremo Duncan Jennings.
They all stand to lose money, as the report states: ‘The company has not granted security to any creditor.’
Before I revealed last month that Boomf had asked the courts to appoint administrators, it was reported to have been ‘sold’ to a photography company, Splento. The report discloses that it fetched £300,000. Despite selling up,
Middleton stands to receive two per cent of company revenue for the next year, as well as 5p from every sale from a returning customer.
Last month, the boss of Splento, Roman Grigoriev, told me: ‘Once we’ve eased into the business, we are planning loads of amazing things and growing the company way beyond what it was.’
The report says HMRC is expected to be paid in full. Other creditors are set to share £165,000.
Middleton, who declines to comment, has previously described himself as an ‘ideas’ man who struggled ‘with the minutiae of running a business’.
FOUR-times married former ITN war correspondent Brent sadler wrote about the ‘difficulties’ of being a cheating husband in this newspaper earlier this week.
Now, his third wife, tess stimson, has revealed that she became so unhealthily obsessed with her appearance that she went on a ‘mirror fast’.
stimson, 53, says: ‘there’s a reason a woman’s eyesight starts to go when she hits 40; it’s to soften the blow when she looks in the mirror.
‘so i decided to do a “mirror fast” and give up mirrors for a week.’ But did it work? the author of the adultery Club and One good affair says: ‘i’m not looking in the mirror nearly as much, but it’s nice to be able to put lipstick on properly again.’