09 November 2000

Wetnose.com Dries Up

Hot on the heals of news of the failed Pets.com, Marlbrough (Wiltshire) based online pet retailer Wetnose.com has gone into liquidation with debts of around £1.6m. The company which was set up in 1999 raised £1.5m for its online shop selling equine and pet products was due to open for business complete with a mail-order catalogue in time for the Christmas shopping season. Lord Rothermere, chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust, who is reported as holding a 10 per cent stake in Wetnose.com joins other shareholders in the company who are unlikely to get their money back. According to Tim Ball, of liquidators Mazars Neville Russell, Wetnose.com had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds developing the website, but were unable to raise any more partly because the market had turned against them. 15 employees have been made redundant as a result of the closure and assets, including the domain name, computer equipment and the intellectual property are to be sold to pay off creditors, most of whom were suppliers. A report in The Times notes that Lord Daresbury, chairman and former chief executive of De Vere Hotels Group, was chairman of Wetnose.com but resigned shortly before the company stopped trading last month. Kindly brought to our attention by Elspeth Knight of petsonthebrain.com