Shona Campbell of Henderson Loggie LLP acted as joint administrator of 2NDHND after being appointed alongside Lee Green and Andrew Kelsall of Larking Gowen LLP on 17 October.

Following the deal, Bureau Group has said it plans to create the UK’s first large-scale circular marketplace for commercial furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E).

The move brings furniture remanufacture in-house for the first time at Edinburgh-based Bureau Group, which helps companies from startups to blue chips refit and redesign office spaces by procuring and removing FF&E sustainably.

The acquisition secures five jobs at 2NDHND as well as the promise of further jobs down the line – including apprenticeships – as Bureau Group sets about building the UK’s largest remanufacture facility for commercial office furniture.

The new roles will include design-focused positions as part of plans to ramp up the standard and expectation of refurbished FF&E.

The remanufacture facility will see furniture from large corporates, SMEs, and the public sector completely refurbished to ‘Category 1’ condition – almost new – and ready to be commercially resold or redistributed to charities, schools and other not-for-profits, avoiding the need for furniture to go to landfill. Over 17,000 pieces of furniture are already in the warehouse ready to be redistributed.

The new arm of the business will initially operate as a direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform under Bureau Group’s ‘The Office Crowd’ banner, before ultimately also providing complete furniture refurbishment for B2B procurement teams – a service that has been typically challenging to date.

Co-founders Andy and Jennifer Russell say the acquisition is a “pivotal moment in supporting large scale decarbonisation of the commercial furniture industry” in Bureau Group’s pursuit of helping prevent millions of tonnes of office furniture needlessly going to landfill every year.

Ms Russell, co-founder and group operations director at Bureau Group, said: “We see huge value in this market, and are pleased to rescue the industry-leading skills and experience here in Scotland and add it to our offering as part of our plans to build a stable market.

“Our ambition is to create a remanufacturing facility where we are training people up and developing skills that would otherwise be lost. The demand for these services will not diminish and that makes the sector and marketplace sustainable in itself.

“Much like the lifecycle of a chair, we want to invest in the life cycle of these skills and ensure they are passed from generation to generation.”

Ms Campbell, partner at administrator Henderson Loggie LLP, said: “Bureau Group presented an ambitious, exciting and most importantly viable plan for the future of the business, and Henderson Loggie LLP is delighted the ongoing employment of five people has been secured.

“We wish Bureau Group and its employees the best of luck with the venture.”

Bureau Group, which also has branches in Glasgow, London and US tech hub Seattle, is on course to turnover £10 million plus next year, delivering projects for UK-based companies around the world from Shenzhen and Miami to Singapore and Barcelona.