The joint administrators of Eve Sleep are braced for "significant claims" against the brand after it collapsed two weeks ago.

The AIM-listed business, which operates in the UK, Ireland and France, appointed Matt Ingram and Jimmy Saunders from Kroll on October 17 to handle the affairs of the company.

Kroll then managed the sale of its brand and intellectual property to Lancashire-headquartered Bensons for Beds.

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According to a new document filed by Kroll with Companies House, Eve Sleep owed more than £2.8m when it entered administration.

The document shows that unsecured creditors were owed over £2.4m while preferential claims totalled £432,600.

However, the joint administrators also said that more claims are expected to be made against Eve Sleep.

Kroll said: "The directors expect significant claims to be received from consumer creditors as the company offered a one-year trial period and 10-year warranty with its mattresses (and other similar arrangements on other products) and had taken payments from consumers for which it was unable to deliver the goods.

"The warranty obligations were not underwritten by an insurer and, due to its insolvency, the company is unable to satisfy returns, refunds or warranty claims.

"It is likely to result in significant claims being made by consumers against chargeback and Section 75 schemes and against other payment providers, and against the company where there is no other recourse.

"It is not currently possible to estimate the potential level of claims of this nature."

Kroll added: "Based on the current information available to the joint administrators, there might be sufficient realisations to enable a distribution to the non-preferential unsecured creditors of the company.

"Creditors should be aware that it is always difficult to predict the likelihood of a dividend at this stage.

"Actual dividends payable will be affected by asset realisations, costs of the administration and the quantum of preferential creditor claims, which may differ from the directors' estimates".

Eve Sleep was founded in 2015 by Jas Bagniewski, Kuba Wieczorek and James Fryer and listed on AIM in May 2017.

The company sold its products through a retail partnership with DFS and through its online portal.

On the events leading up to the business entering administration, Kroll said: "The company has consistently been loss-making since its formation.

"However, since 2018 the management team had implemented a change in strategy and cost-saving measures which were intended to improve performance.

"As a result of this, the levels of sales reduced and subsequently, so did the losses incurred.

"However, the company's market sector suffered significantly in 2022 and whilst the company outperformed wider market conditions, weakness in the economy, declining consumer confidence and rising inflation in input prices and for consumers led to the company warning stakeholders of the impact on its cash reserves and launching a formal sale process on 6 June 2022.

"The sale process did not identify a purchaser and the company subsequently undertook an accelerated marketing process for its business and assets."

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