Out of stock

MCI Management, a stock-listed investment fund, has revealed that it disposed of its 41.95 percent stake in Hoopla.pl - until now one of Poland's largest websites selling appliances and electronics - for the symbolic price of zł.1, and soon afterwards the website suspended its operations. As WBJ went to press, all of the products appearing for sale on the site, from fridges to digital cameras, were listed as "out of stock."

Hoopla.pl was one of the fastest growing companies in Poland, and was named the most dynamic "Rising Star" CEE enterprise according to a prestigious ranking by Deloitte last October.

Despite that, it postponed its IPO last year, citing poor performance of the markets. It was thus unable to gain needed capital for investments.

Representatives of MCI Management claim that the failure of Hoopla.pl will not influence the results of the fund, since it recovered more than its layouts in the site, collecting zł.1.6 million during a private offer in autumn 2007, Parkiet reported.

According to Puls Biznesu, the stake sold by MCI was bought by a group of private investors, who  "changed the management and planned to alter the [site's] business model."

Some of the reasons for the recent chain of events included competition, which has reduced Hoopla.pl's client base. This competition, according to Puls Biznesu, was mainly the introduction of other websites with a similar business model, as well as companies which were previously wholesalers and have now entered the retail market.

The paper also reported that over the last six months, Hoopla.pl had implemented a program aimed at righting the ship, but this program had been unsuccessful.