There’s still been no official announcement but the owners of Space NK are said to have hired bankers to help them sell the premium beauty business.

There has been speculation for some time that a full or partial sale was on the cards and now Sky News has reported that Manzanita Capital has picked investment bank Raymond James to handle an auction that could see a sale price of over £300 million, and possibly as high as £400 million. But non eof the parties involved have commented.

The private equity company is said to be looking towards an auction later this year after 20 years of owning the chain that has seen in increasingly strong results in recent periods.

Sky said that a final decision hasn’t been made either on timing or, more crucially, whether it will sell the entire business, a controlling or minority stake.

Manzanita, which also owns French perfume house Diptyque and Susanna Kaufmann, the Austrian luxury skincare brand, has reportedly been mulling this dilemma for some time.

The company had also been looking to sell back in 2018 but decided not to proceed at that point. And since then Space NK appears to have gone from strength to strength, aside from the pandemic period.