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Victoria Beckham‘s fashion empire has now racked up losses totalling more than £50million after a sixth consecutive year of no profits.
Directors have warned there is ‘significant doubt’ over its future without more cash from her and husband David.
The ex-Spice Girl’s luxury brand made a loss of £8.6million in 2020. That followed a loss of £16.8million in the previous 12 months.
It has never turned a profit since it first filed figures for 2016, with losses now totalling £56.7million.
Victoria Beckham, husband David and a number of other shareholders have had to pump in millions of pounds to keep her fashion and beauty business afloat
The firm will ‘require continued shareholder support and financing’ to save it, directors admit.
They warn ‘there are no contractual agreements for this support’, adding: ‘This requirement of further funding indicates that a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the group’s and parent company’s ability to continue as a going concern.’
But the directors ‘have the reasonable expectation that any support will be provided from the shareholders’ – believed to refer to the former Posh Spice, 47, and her husband, 46.
Despite the firm’s losses, the couple were still able to pay themselves £40,000 a day in 2019 thanks to the success of the ex-footballer’s business, DB Ventures.
The Victoria Beckham company has stores in London and Hong Kong which were forced to close for much of the past two years because of Covid. It also struggled to sell its high-end womenswear and accessories in Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and US department store Bloomingdale’s.
To help balance the books in the early months of the Covid outbreak, the company’s shareholders, including the celebrity couple themselves, were needed to provide £9.2m in loans, the Guardian reports
The Victoria Beckham Beauty arm, launched in 2019, had some success, winning 12 awards and producing a popular new lipstick, Posh. It had £7.3million in sales in its first full year – up from £1.9million in 2019 – but the overall business continues to struggle and was propped up with a £9.2million loan from directors last year.
Mrs Beckham was criticised for using the furlough scheme for 30 of the 120 staff at her fashion label at the height of the pandemic. She wrote to them in April 2020 saying they would be on 80 per cent pay for at least two months.
But the former pop star, who is worth £335million, reversed the decision two weeks later after uproar, saying her team’s welfare ‘means everything to me’ as she vowed to pay them herself.
A spokesman for Mrs Beckham said the trading figures were ‘a good result in a difficult year’. They added: ‘Victoria Beckham Holdings has managed to halve its losses, grow its online sales in the fashion business and significantly grow its beauty business. Victoria Beckham Beauty performed strongly.’
Mrs Beckham has four children with her former Manchester United and England captain husband –Brooklyn, 22, Romeo, 19, Cruz, 16, and Harper, ten.
Source: Daily Mail
