In yet another massive blow to the tiling sector, major UK-based supplier Fired Earth has entered administration, with the company’s 133 employees being made redundant.
Dane O’Hara and Neil Bennett from Leonard Curtis were appointed as joint administrators to the company last week, on October 31.
Administrators say they are working to secure a sale of the business’ assets to an undisclosed third party. Unfortunately, this does not include staff, and therefore, all company employees have been made redundant.
All of the company’s stores are being closed, with the exception of its head office and warehouse premises in Banbury. Administrators say this site will stay open for a period of time to fulfil outstanding customer orders, as the brand continues to fulfil customer orders from inventory stock.
The Fired Earth brand was founded in Oxfordshire in 1983, and although it is best known for its tiling products, in recent years the company also branched out into offering high quality paint and rugs.
Despite reporting a turnover of almost £15m in its most recent financial results, the company also made a £1.6m loss in 2024, following on from a similar sized loss the year before. The company had 20 UK showrooms, as well as two overseas in Denmark and Norway.
“Fired Earth has been loss making for some time,” administrator Dane O’Hara explained. “In the last three years the company has been supported by its shareholder via substantial working capital loans, while efforts were made to return the business to profitability. Unfortunately, the company has continued to incur trading losses, and its investor was not prepared to provide further funding to the business in the absence of a viable turnaround strategy.”
Leonard Curtis was reportedly approached to undertake an initial review of the business. Unfortunately, the business was found to be incapable of restructuring in its current form and the difficult decision was made to seek a buyer. O’Hara confirmed several parties were interested in the business on an asset-only basis, but that administrators had not “received a proceedable offer that preserves any of the locations or staff as a consequence”.
News of Fired Earth filing to appoint administrators follows last year’s announcement that major tiling retailer CTD Tiles was entering administration – although Topps Tiles later acquired its brand and assets, along with 30 of its stores. Several more CTD Tiles were later saved by Stiled Limited and Indian tiling retailer Kajaria.
Also in 2024, Staffordshire-based supplier Johnson Tiles announced it would be closing its production facility in Tunstall to move to an outsourced production model, saying it had become “increasingly unsustainable” to manufacture tiles in the UK.