Three former key leaders at Farfetch are reportedly involved in a High Court dispute with the once-high-flying e-tailer’s liquidators amid allegations of “serious mismanagement” before the firm’s rapid collapse and subsequent sale to South Korea’s Coupang.
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That’s according to a report in The Times, which said Farfetch founder José Neves, ex-group president Stephanie Phair, and ex-CFO Elliot Jordan “are at the centre of an investigation into the circumstances leading to its failure”.
Liquidator Alvarez & Marsal said the business may have been “seriously mismanaged” by those in charge ahead of its failure and is questioning the reasons for the “rapid and drastic deterioration in the company’s finances”, court documents seen by the newspaper say.
Alvarez & Marsal is also seeking an investigation into the speedy £396 million sale to Coupang before the business was placed into liquidation.
Founded in 2008, Farfetch had seen rapid progress during the boom years for luxury e-commerce and Neves seemed to have the Midas touch when it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in autumn 2018 with a value of billions of dollars. In the next couple of years, its share price rose from under $30 to over $70, but after reaching a high exactly four years ago, it began a sharp decline and from early 2022 went into freefall.
The company had been on an ambitious expansion programme with purchases such as Browns and New Guards Group as well as a move into new categories such as beauty (which it later exited).
Coupang’s purchase of the business in a pre-pack administration deal last year wiped out shareholders and many bondholders. But they’d already seen the value of their shares falling as much as 99%.
The Times report said that in recent court documents, the liquidator said the company had “effectively written off over $1 billion of debt obligations owed to it by way of the intercompany loans and has effectively been deprived of its ownership and interests in the Farfetch business as a whole and which took place without any public explanation in circumstances where, as recently as August 2023, the company and its directors had stated publicly that its business was in good financial health.”
Alvarez & Marsal also claim the former directors have failed to answer requests for documents and information on a voluntary basis.
The report also said that Alvarez & Marsal, Farfetch and José Neves haven’t responded to requests for comment, although that isn’t unexpected given the ongoing court case.
