According to a Daily Mail report, the business run by the parents of the Princess of Wales, Carole and Michael, is collapsing. Creditors are speaking of a “betrayal” as the party goods business started by the Middledons in 1987 is £2.6m in debt.

Thanks to the income from ‘Party Pieces Holdings’, their three children studied at Marlborough College, which costs £42,930 a year, and enabled them to buy a £4.7m mansion.

Debts are now estimated at £2.6m, according to the administrators’ report. This is £218,749 to RBS for a loan during the pandemic, £456,008 to other creditors and £1.4m in unsecured loans. The report notes that it is “extremely unlikely” that creditors will get anything.

Among those affected is the owner of the estate in Berkshire, where the company was based for many years.

The Middledons say the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis have caused sales to plummet and liquidity problems.

The report says the business started in 1987 when Carole Middleton started helping parents throw imaginative parties.

SOURCE: APE-ME