goop

Last week, Gwyneth Paltrow‘s friend and GOOP CEO Seb Bishop up and quit out of nowhere. It all seemed kind of suspicious, and while people were trying to say it was because he didn’t like that she announced her divorce from a company perspective, it seems like things might be a tad more serious, since GOOP seems to be in over $1 million worth of debt. From Radar Online: For two years running, they racked up serious losses totaling more than $300,000 — thanks in part to an interest-free loan Paltrow took from the company coffers! According to the most recent corporate documentation filed with the Companies House in the U.K., in 2011, GOOP “incurred a loss of $255,312 (£152,060) and had a net liabilities of $259,969 (£154,834).” And in 2012, they reported “a loss of $39,823 (£23,718) and … net liabilities of $298,512 (£177,788).” It’s not that GOOP wasn’t making money. In fact, in 2012, they raked in more than $1.5 million (£908,378), thanks in part to $463,486 (£276,040) in product sales, as well as an impressive (£222,243) from Groupon promotions and $373,159 (£535,002) in commissions. All told, the company made $1,893,065 (£1,127,456). But that same year, GOOP spent $98,150 (£58,456) on Goop.com, $79,961 (£47,623) on the notorious GOOP newsletter, $189,590 (£112,918) on product costs, and a whopping $1,564,995 (£932,096) in administrative expenses,” adding up to the grand profit total of a loss of $39,823 (£23,718). Chief among those “administrative expenses” were Paltrow and CEO Sebastian Bishop’s “renumeration,” or salaries, for which the company allotted $587,653.25 (£350,000), a sizable increase from the previous year’s figure of $172,585 (£102,788), despite the company’s losses. The documents also show that in 2012, both Paltrow and Bishop were the recipient of interest-free “loans to directors,” with Paltrow’s listed at a balance of $49,025 (£29,200), of which none was paid back, and Bishop’s at $83,617 (£49,800). Other expenses in 2012 included $456,007 (£271,584) in other wages, $34,507 (£20,551) on travel, nearly $4,000 (£2,118) on “Entertaining,” and nearly $5,000 (£2,951) on “Staff Entertainment.” Sooooo… basically they were sorta cooking their own books, or at the very least ignoring the dire financial situation to make sure they got paid even if the company was sinking. There are a lot more numbers that are worth taking a look at (if you care about this sort of thing), but it looks like GOOP may soon be taking a bow unless she can sell a whole lot of $500 sweaters soon.