Ethical beauty company Westbarn Co Ltd, which grew from a North East kitchen enterprise into a company loved by global fashionistas, has been wound up owing more than £596,000, documents reveal.
Westbarn Co Ltd has been voluntarily wound up by business advisors appointed by founder Kimberley Cattin, who launched the business with her mother seven years ago with its bestselling beauty product, Soap Brows. Ian Kings and Andrew Little of Begbies Traynor were appointed as joint liquidators of Westbarn Co Ltd on March 23, and a statement of affairs shows the firm ceased trading owing trade creditors £450,833 and banks and other institutions £49,789.
It had an estimated £11,500 available for preferential creditors, which included employees owed arrears and holiday pay. Other preferential creditors included HMRC which was owed £33,329. In all, the deficit totalled £596,846.
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The registered company has been liquidated but the West Barn Co name and its stock has been sold to former managers, and the website – currently listing all products as being out of stock – will soon be operational once more, the original firm’s founder has confirmed.
Begbies Traynor partner Ian Kings, one of the joint administrators of Westbarn Co Ltd, said: “Westbarn Co Ltd ceased to trade at the end of February and all employees were made redundant. An independent agent was instructed to market the assets for sale. A sale of the assets including the name, IP, website, equipment and stock was sold by the liquidators on the recommendation of the agent, to a team made up of some of the previous management team.”
The West Barn Co website is now registered under the SB1 Beauty Group, a company incorporated by Kimberley Cattin. When contacted by The Journal she confirmed she had engaged with Begbies Traynor last year to help financially restructure the business and that the process is now almost complete.
She said: “We expect to be fully operational very soon, when the website will be stocked and orders can be processed.”
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Ms Cattin had been working as a TV and film make-up artist when she saw a gap in the market for a niche beauty product to keep eyebrows in place. Soap Brows was initially made and designed in her mother’s kitchen before going on to become a worldwide bestseller, featuring in the likes of Vogue, New York Magazine and Cosmopolitan, stocked in top retailers and used by celebrities including Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish.
The brand last year expanded into a new head office at Belmont Industrial Estate, Durham for its team of around 30 employees, where its range of cruelty-free, vegan-friendly, sustainable beauty products were shipped to over 60 countries worldwide.
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