GrowUp Group owed creditors almost £120m when it filed for administration in the run up to Christmas, new documents have shown. The report prepared by insolvency practitioners at Interpath also revealed the price paid by former CEO Marcus Whately and private equity backers to buy the vertical farming site in Kent.
GrowUp became the latest casualty in the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) sector after struggling to drum up interest in its latest fundraising, as revealed by The Grocer last month. The group appointed administrators on 16 December, immediately selling the operational business, GrowUp Farms, in a pre-pack deal.
Sun Capital Partners acquired the assets, including a 100% shareholding in GrowUp Farms Ltd, for £1.9m, according to the Interpath report. The London-based PE firm was advised by Whately, who led GrowUp for six years until he resigned in November 2024. The deal included an additional "anti-embarrassment" provision, which would see the buyers paying the administrators more money if they were to resell the assets for a higher price within a specified period.
Whately told The Grocer last year it remained "business as usual" at the vertical farm and the fundamentals of the company were "strong". GrowUp raised £140m in funding since 2022 to support the set-up of the Pepperness vertical farm in Sandwich, with most of the investment coming from Generate Capital, which committed a large amount via convertible loan notes.
Read more at The Grocer
