AllBright, London’s women-only members’ club, enters administration | Entrepreneurs

AllBright, the women-only members’ club with a five-storey townhouse in Mayfair, London, has entered administration, the Guardian can reveal.

The networking and events business – which was co-founded by the Telegraph Media Group’s chief executive, Anna Jones, and the co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, Debbie Wosskow – emailed members last week to say it was closing the doors of its building just off Regent Street.

Still, some staff and business members did not learn of its administration until Tuesday morning.

The club first opened on International Women’s Day in 2018, and its name was inspired by the former US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, and her remark: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

AllBright had struggled amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the disruption to working patterns. Still, its closure comes amid a supposed boom in the wider private members’ club sector.

The club’s individual memberships started at £1,950 a year, with corporate membership at £1,500. Its townhouse on Maddox Street boasted two restaurants, a bar, a hair salon and roof terrace.

The company’s latest set of accounts are overdue, according to filings on Companies House.

Jones and Wosskow stepped back from their roles as directors at the company in February 2023. Viviane Paxinos, a former media executive, had taken over as chief executive the previous year.

In the year to March 2022 – the latest set of available accounts – AllBright reported a pre-tax loss of £6.2m.

The new administration comes two years after Cain International, co-founded by a director and co-owner of Chelsea football club Jonathan Goldstein, wrote off AllBright’s debts and reinvested in the business via a pre-pack administration.

Private members’ clubs were described as one of the fastest-growing real estate sectors by lettings and property agents Knight Frank in a report in September.

Members were emailed last week to be told that they would have access to a “dedicated lounge” at the Old Session House in Farringdon.

The email read: “Sadly, with rising rents and the scale of the building, combined with its premium location, the Mayfair townhouse is no longer viable. While events, networking opportunities and learning programmes remain in high demand, the social and dining spaces were underutilised.”

A spokesperson for AllBright declined to comment.