Distressed beauty brand Barry M in search of a buyer

Ethical beauty product brand Barry M is scrambling to find a buyer after filing paperwork to enter administration, potentially ending four decades of family ownership of the beloved British cosmetics maker.

The London-based manufacturer, which counts Boots and Superdrug among its retail partners, engaged restructuring advisers Begbies Traynor in recent weeks to sound out potential buyers. The move comes after the company gave courts notice of its intention to appoint administrators, while management and Begbies Traynor hunt for a rescue deal.

The race against time underscores a brutal year for UK beauty brands. Welsh firm Mallows Beauty folded into liquidation last December owing £1.9 million to creditors despite once generating nearly £5 million in annual sales. Revolution Beauty was forced to bring back its founders after a failed sale process left it licking its wounds with revenues down 25% and losses of £16.8 million.

From market stall to crisis point
Barry M has travelled a remarkable journey from its humble beginnings at East London's Ridley Road Market in the 1970s to becoming a cult British brand famous for vibrant nail polish shades and affordable prices. Founder Barry Mero, who passed away in 2014, built the business into a staple on high street shelves, with his son Dean taking the helm in 2004.

The company positions itself as ‘vegan and cruelty-free’ and supplements its retail partner sales with a Shopify-powered e-commerce site at barrym.com. The brand also boasts 40k TikTok followers and 436k Instagram followers.

The latest filed accounts paint an outwardly rosy picture. Revenue grew to £17.4 million in February 2024, up from £15 million a year earlier, whilst pre-tax profits surged from £36,851 to £172,197. Yet underneath these encouraging figures, serious cracks were forming. Management warned that "geopolitical issues" were hammering their cost base - a euphemism for supply chain chaos and soaring input costs.

Last year, Barry M undertook its first major rebrand in over 40 years, betting that repositioning the brand around "individuality" and "unretouched skin" would appeal to younger customers. It wasn't enough to offset mounting pressures.

The perfect storm
Barry M's troubles are symptomatic of a broader issue engulfing British business. Begbies Traynor found that 67,369 UK companies entered "critical" financial distress in the final quarter of 2025, a stunning 43.8% surge year-on-year. HM Revenue & Customs is pursuing £27 billion in back taxes, whilst April's rise in employer National Insurance contributions added another £3,000-per-employee annual cost for businesses.

For manufacturers like Barry M, the squeeze is particularly acute. Electricity costs four times higher than in America and 46% above the global average make UK-based production brutally uncompetitive. The cosmetics manufacturing sector has contracted at 0.8% annually since 2020, battered by high import costs, stringent regulations, and global competition.

Barry M operates a 45,000-square-foot factory in Mill Hill, employing over 100 people. The in-house manufacturing is a point of pride - British-made quality. Nevertheless, the company's famous nail polish, iconic for its range of shades and affordable price point, struggles against rivals with leaner overseas operations.

The sector-wide picture
The beauty industry is proving no exception to the broader crisis. The Body Shop UK closed 82 of 198 stores after entering administration. Bodycare shuttered 32 stores with 450 redundancies. In January, AS Beauty Group permanently closed Cover FX and Mally Beauty. It is quite surprising how quickly sentiment in the sector has dropped - in 2022 the industry was seemingly thriving.

Internationally, bigger names are also stumbling. Estée Lauder is offloading mid-tier brands Smashbox, Too Faced, and Dr. Jart+ at fire-sale prices. Pat McGrath Labs, once valued above $1 billion, is now in asset liquidation. M&A activity in the sector has slowed somewhat, with buyers chasing mainly high-growth, digitally-savvy brands with clear differentiation.

What happens next?
If administration proceeds, an insolvency practitioner – probably Begbies Traynor - will take control. They have eight weeks to propose a rescue plan, likely either restructuring the business, selling it as a going concern, or liquidating assets including the IP. Barry M's established brand, retail relationships, and in-house manufacturing could attract interest from turnaround specialists or strategic buyers seeking entry into UK beauty.

But time is short. The ten-day moratorium window is unforgiving. If no buyer materialises, creditors will be left fighting over a company with high fixed costs and a tough competitive landscape.

For Dean Mero and his family, the anguish extends beyond financial loss. Succession remains a thorny issue for British family businesses - fewer than 30% of leading family firms from 1996 survived under family ownership a decade later. The emotional weight of potentially surrendering the brand his father built adds another dimension to an already brutal negotiation.

Barry M's crisis is less an outlier than a canary in the coal mine. As 2026 unfolds, expect many more British manufacturers and retailers to face similar crossroads, trapped between domestic cost burdens and global competition they cannot overcome.

Serious offers for the business can be made direct to the restructuring firm, Begbies Traynor.

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