Chelsea Apps Factory future in the balance following second administration in a year
Chelsea Apps Factory has entered administration for the second time in a year after a concerted effort to turn around the company fell short, with a senior executive at the agency admitting to The Drum that it looks to be the end of the line.
Chelsea Apps Factory in administration
The firm, founded by tabloid boss Mike Anderson in 2010, appointed consultancy Leonard Curtis on 7 January to overlook its second administration in just a year. Just months earlier (August 2018) Chelsea Apps Factory was sold to a new company while still led by founder Anderson, slimming down the company from around 70 to 42 staff. Anderson left the role early in December however, with Alastair Watson as sole director.
Now administrator Leonard Curtis, which oversaw the contentious Unilad sale to LadBible, is tasked with finding a buyer for the company, or to fold it up, according to documents filed to Companies House.
After a costly restructure, in September, the founder and chief executive of shuttered digital marketing agency 7thingsmedia, Chris Bishop was installed as the business director to turn around the group’s fortunes in a consultancy capacity, then as managing director tasked ultimately with bringing in more clients to make up for a gap in its income. He held the role from September to January.
Highlighting the difficulty of the situation, in the 12 months to 28 February 2017, the company posted a pre-tax loss of £1.42m off an income of £6.6m.
A once-70-strong team had previously worked with clients including KPMG, Ladbrokes, Standard Life, TfL, Vanquis and Waitrose. A senior exec at the company told The Drum: “The restructuring and the sins of the previous business made things really difficult.
“It seems like a wrap-up, a few companies wanted to buy the rights to the name… from a client activity point of view, they’ve been spooked by the administrations," a source close to the situation told The Drum.
Recently, the agency worked for non-profit Peace One Day to launch the Impact Profile app. During this period it also won Fintech App of the Year 2018 at the UK App Awards for its work with client Vanquis Bank.
The Drum was awaiting comment from both Leonard Curtis and the Chelsea App Factory at the time of publishing.