Irish heirloom jewellery company Chupi returned to modest profits in 2024 after losing more than \u20ac2 million over the previous two years, following job cuts and declining sales. <\/p>\n
New unaudited, abridged accounts for Blazenvale Ltd, the trading entity behind the brand, reveal that accumulated losses of more than \u20ac2.77 million had built up at the company by the end of last year. That is down slightly from more than \u20ac2.8 million at the end of 2023 after Blazenvale booked a small \u20ac33,617 profit in 2024. <\/p>\n
It follows two challenging years at the company, where designer and entrepreneur Chupi Sweetman and her husband Brian Durney are listed as directors. <\/p>\n
Blazenvale lost \u20ac1.3 million in 2022 and \u20ac1.96 million in 2023. Ms Sweetman, who was approached for comment on Monday, previously characterised the 2022 losses as \u201cplanned\u201d but declined to comment on the 2023 figures when approached last November. <\/p>\n
Of the losses in 2022, Ms Sweetman said at the time that the company had made \u201cvery significant investments\u201d in marketing and branding that year.<\/p>\n
However, The Irish Times reported that while Chupi was expanding and rebranding, the leadership team had communicated to staff that the business had underperformed on its forecasts, with a double-digit decline in online sales dragging on headline revenues.<\/p>\n
Redundancies and temporary lay-offs followed, including a round of job cuts that came roughly six months after the business secured a \u20ac3.75 million equity and debt investment from BVP, Abbey International Finance and PTSB to fuel its growth plans for Ireland and the UK.<\/p>\n
Blazenvale employed 49 people last year, unchanged from the previous financial period. <\/p>\n
Yet, staffing costs \u2013 including wages and salaries as well as retirement benefit costs \u2013 dropped by more than 300 per cent to slightly more than \u20ac530,000, according to the unaudited accounts. <\/p>\n