Sometimes reviving an old brand can be fun – like Starburst sweets being rebranded as Opal Fruits for the summer – but there’s usually a good reason why brands vanish into obscurity and stay there.

So, when Victorian Plumbing (VIC) announced it was reviving the MFI brand – which collapsed into administration in 2008 because it could no longer compete effectively – with a relaunch planned for the first half of 2026, the question on everyone’s lips was ‘why?’

That was followed by ‘how much? ‘as the firm revealed bringing MFI back from the dead would cost it £6 million in profits over the next two years.

Had Victorian Plumbing been winning the battle for market share against firms like B&Q and Wickes (WIX), then maybe investors might have given it the benefit of the doubt, but according to analyst Wayne Brown at Panmure Liberum the opposite is true.

Brown believes the firm needs to ramp up its spend on paid search in order to defend its territory ‘at a time when margin tailwinds unwind and marketing efficiency has worsened’.

With revenue rising by less than 5% per year and pre-tax profit growing by just 2.5% per year, on 14 times current forecasts ‘there seems very little upside and too many risks on the downside’ says Brown. 

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