Online music retailer Gear4Music has done a deal with the administrators of rival Gak.co.uk to secure stock and assets including websites, trademarks and commercial data.
The York-based firm says it has acquired stock with a cost value of £1.8m and intangible assets worth £600,000 from administrators at FRP. It says the deal does not include any part of Gak's trading business or liabilities and that it has no plans to use the Gak trading name.
Gak, which stands for the Guitar, Amp and Keyboard Centre, filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators last week. Like Gear4Music it is an online seller of musical instruments and equipment, and in its most recent available accounts showed sales of more than £21m, but the company complained about the cost of living squeeze on consumer spending.
Simultaneously to the announcement, Gear4Music gave an upbeat assessment of trading in the recent weeks - pointing to a pick up in demand. Current market expectations for the firm in the year to the end of March 2026 are revenues of £153.8m, Ebitda of £10.9m and pre-tax profits of £2.65m.
In an update to the London Stock Exchange, the firm said: "The group is pleased to report that the marked improvement in º£½ÇÊÓƵ and European like-for-like sales in the latter half of March has been sustained over the first two weeks of April, with a return to double-digit sales growth over the last 30 days providing the board with further confidence in the outlook for the year ending March 31, 2026."
In January, Gear4Music gave a trading update that revealed º£½ÇÊÓƵ revenues were up 13% across the important Christmas trading period, covering the three months to the end of December. Meanwhile revenue in Europe and the rest of the world fell 4%.
The firm said Christmas trading had followed an expected pattern as revenues in November were subdued by the late Black Friday weekend, pushing peak revenues into the three weeks before Christmas.
