Established & Sons under new ownership following death of co-founder Angad Paul
Business news: British furniture brand Established & Sons has been acquired by overseas investors.
The purchase comes a year after the death of co-founder and chairman Angad Paul, who was also the company's majority shareholder.
The acquisition was coordinated by Vincent Frey, general manager of Parisian design house Pierre Frey.
Accounts filed at Companies House show that a majority stake in the business was acquired earlier this year by Ramzi Wakim, a financier based in Switzerland.
The company's directors are now listed as Wakim, Frey and Michelle Paul, widow of Angad Paul.
The accounts also show that business, which was founded in 2005, posted a loss each year until 2010 – the last year for which full figures are available, when it lost £2,593,000.
The accounts also show that shareholder deficit grew each year since 2015 to a total of £15,143,094 in the 2015 financial year.
This is understood to be money put into the company over the years by Angad Paul, who was also chief executive of steel company Caparo.
Paul died in November last year aged 45 after falling from the balcony of his central London apartment. The tragedy, which the police did not treat as suspicious, came after loss-making Caparo was forced into administration and redundancies announced.
Paul co-founded Established & Sons in 2005 along with designers Sebastian Wrong and Mark Holmes, former Wallpaper* publisher Alasdhair Willis and marketing specialist Tamara Caspersz.
None of the original founders remain with the company. Chief executive Maurizio Mussati, who joined the company in 2008, left Established & Sons earlier this year to concentrate on Wonderglass, the design-led glass company he co-founded.
Renowned for its extravagant parties in its first few years, the brand was initially set up as a platform to marry British design and manufacturing, with Paul's extensive steel factories intended to provide the latter.
However, it later switched to working with international designers such as Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Konstantin Grcic, and sourced its manufacturing internationally.