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Ultimate Products has acquired the rights to the Kleeneze brand from the administrators.
Founded in 1923, Lancashire-based Kleeneze was one of Britain’s oldest catalogue companies. It employed 69 staff at its head office based at Accrington and a further 71 at its warehouse in Heywood.
David Acland and Anthony Collier of FRP Advisory were appointed joint administrators of Kleeneze in April.
Ian Maycock of auctioneer and valuer Charterfields in Manchester managed the sale of Kleeneze’s intellectual property, which included the trademarks, domain names, websites and social media accounts.
Oldham-based Ultimate Products, which owns a range of consumer brands, said it now plans to relaunch the Kleeneze brand with a range of laundry and floorcare products for sale into retail and via online channels.
Kleeneze sold a range of homeware, health and beauty, clothing and Christmas products. The stock has also been sold by Charterfields.
Ultimate Products chief executive Simon Showman said: “We are delighted to be adding such a well-established and highly regarded brand as Kleeneze to our portfolio of British brands.
“It has an outstanding heritage with a long-standing reputation for value and quality, and we look forward very much to relaunching it with a new and innovative laundry and floorcare range.
“This deal is consistent with our track record of making opportunistic acquisitions of brands and then successfully relaunching them – the most notable example of which was the purchase of [home cleaning brand] Beldray in 2009, which is now our best-performing brand.”
Ian Maycock of Charterfields said: “Kleeneze was once one of the UK’s most popular homeware brands but unfortunately, as a catalogue company, it failed to adapt to the changing online retail market. We hope that Ultimate Products can help to revive this much-loved brand.”
