2023-06-11 21:25:13
Dhe parents of the British Crown Princess Kate are rid of their company. According to a report by the “Daily Mail”, the online mail order company for party supplies had to face debts of 2.6 million pounds (around three million euros). Competition register and was then resold. “Party Pieces” was founded in 1987 by Kate’s mother Carole Middleton and developed into a lucrative company with the emerging internet trade.
The business idea was “born at the kitchen table,” said the family, who live in Berkshire, west of London. Kate Middleton grew up there in Bucklebury and, like her two siblings James and Pippa, attended the prestigious private school Marlborough College. While her mother Carole, who comes from a working-class family, took care of the party delivery, her father Michael, from a wealthy family, worked as a pilot and flight manager.
Party Pieces was run as a family business. Therefore, information that is subject to publication is rare, and there are no reports on sales and profits. Obviously, however, the company seems to have been profitable for many years. According to newspaper reports, it employed up to 30 people at the company’s headquarters in Berkshire, where the distribution center is also located. In 2017, the company ran an anniversary ad that showed Carol Middleton in a black-and-white photo from the company’s founding days, surrounded by girls and boys celebrating at a children’s birthday party. “We’re celebrating 30 years,” read the caption under the recording.
Consequences of the Covid pandemic as a reason for bankruptcy
The Middletons cited the consequences of the Covid pandemic, in which social restrictions made celebrations of any kind impossible, and inflation, which makes the cost of living in the UK rise even more than in other western countries, as the reason for the bankruptcy of their company. There was a drastic drop in sales and as a result liquidity problems.
According to the “Daily Mail”, the company had received a Corona support loan, of which around 250,000 euros still had to be repaid, and the company also had tax arrears of around 700,000 euros. Some creditors have long believed that a company owned by the Prince of Wales’s in-laws could not go bankrupt despite payment difficulties. A supplier of helium to fill party balloons, who claims outstanding debts of around 25,000 euros, said he felt cheated by Middletons; he had trusted the mother-in-law of the future king.
Regarding the sale of Party Pieces, it is said that the Middletons paid the equivalent of around 200,000 euros – most of it for remaining stock, a small part for office equipment and the intellectual property of the company. The buyer, James Sinclair, runs a party and events agency that specializes in children’s celebrations. All twelve employees will be taken over.
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