Next

Entity: Next plc (LSE: NXT) | Sector: Fashion & Homeware Retail | BRS Score: 552 | Tier: C (High) Compiled from: Military, Digital, Economic, Political domain audits (2026-06-27)

Key Findings

• Political: Next plc has never issued a corporate statement on the Israel-Hamas war and does not appear on the Yale School of Management list of companies condemning the 7 October 2023 attack, in documented contrast to its vocal, commercially concrete 2022 exit from the Russian market (an estimated £85 million sales impact); separately, the founding Wolfson family’s charitable trusts fund Beit Halochem, an IDF veterans’ charity, and Israeli universities, distinct from the Next plc corporate entity.^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
• Economic: Next’s disclosed sourcing footprint (Modern Slavery Transparency Statement 2025-26) shows no Israeli manufacturing; a worldwide Ted Baker underwear license held by Israeli manufacturer Delta Galil is a separate, independently negotiated deal from Next’s own unrelated Ted Baker childrenswear license.^{6, 7}
• Digital: No Israeli-domiciled vendor was identified anywhere in Next’s disclosed enterprise technology stack (Microsoft Azure, Tableau, Dynatrace, Zendesk are all non-Israeli).^{8, 9}
• Not found: No Who Profits or UN OHCHR settlement-business-database listing, no Israeli defence-ministry or military contract of any kind, and Next declined a 2016 opportunity to open physical stores in Israel, maintaining an online-only retail presence instead.^{10, 11, 12, 13}

Target Profile

Key Facts:

• next.co.il generated an estimated NIS 60-70 million/year in online sales as of 2016 reporting, with no confirmed physical stores.^{12, 13}
• Next’s own Modern Slavery Transparency Statement lists no Israeli sourcing country among its top ten manufacturing hubs (Bangladesh, China, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Cambodia, Turkey, Vietnam, Myanmar, Great Britain).⁶
• Next does not appear in the Who Profits database or the UN OHCHR database of businesses linked to Israeli settlement activity.^{10, 11}

Executive Summary

Next plc is a UK-listed fashion and homeware retailer whose documented Israel/Palestine nexus, across all four audited domains, is narrow, indirect, and substantially unverified where it is asserted at all. The company manufactures no weapons, dual-use goods, or defence-relevant technology, holds no contract with the Israeli Ministry of Defence or the IDF, and does not appear in either of the two authoritative civil-society/UN tracking instruments - the Who Profits database and the UN OHCHR database of business enterprises involved in Israeli settlement activity.^{10, 11} Its only confirmed operational presence connected to Israel is a direct-to-consumer online retail channel, next.co.il, generating an estimated NIS 60-70 million annually as of the most recent identified reporting (2016), with Next having explicitly declined to open physical stores in Israel despite a generic international franchise-recruitment notice on its site prompting speculation to the contrary.^{12, 13}

The strongest documented vectors are political rather than commercial. Next plc as a corporate entity has issued no public statement on the Gaza war and does not appear on the Yale School of Management’s list of companies that condemned the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack - a documented silence that stands in contrast to Next’s vocal and commercially material 2022 exit from Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, at an estimated £85 million cost.^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5} Separately, and importantly attributed at the family rather than corporate level, the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust and the related Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust have directed philanthropic giving toward Beit Halochem (an organisation supporting wounded IDF veterans) and toward major Israeli universities (Hebrew University, Technion, Weizmann Institute, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University, Bar-Ilan University).^{1, 14, 15} These trusts are administered separately from Next plc as a corporate entity, and no primary source establishes what share, if any, of trust capital derives from Next dividends as opposed to broader Wolfson family wealth.

A notable feature of the evidentiary record is the number of claims that do not withstand verification. A claim that Simon Wolfson personally sat on the board of the New Israel Fund was traced to its source and found to actually describe Sir Jeremy Beecham, an unrelated Labour peer named in the same 2010 honours list.¹⁶ A separate claim that Simon Wolfson was a trustee of “UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers” does not hold up against the Charity Commission register, which lists four different named trustees with no Wolfson family member among them.¹⁷ And a widely circulated report of a peer “raising funds to feed the IDF” concerns David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Tredegar - a Liverpool-born barrister and government minister from an unrelated family - not Simon Wolfson or the Next-controlling Wolfson family.^{1, 18} A separate Israeli company, “Nextcom Group,” holds documented Israeli Ministry of Defence, Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Rafael contracts and appears in Who Profits records, but is confirmed to be an unrelated homonym with no corporate connection to Next plc.¹⁹

No public evidence was identified of Next holding, developing, or procuring any military, dual-use, or surveillance technology of Israeli origin; Next’s disclosed enterprise technology stack (Microsoft Azure, Tableau, Dynatrace, Zendesk) is entirely non-Israeli.^{8, 9} The one identified supply-chain intersection with an Israeli-listed company - Delta Galil Industries, an 80%-owned subsidiary of which operates retail branches in West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements - is a licensing coincidence rather than a direct commercial relationship: Delta Galil separately holds a Ted Baker underwear license, while Next independently holds an unrelated Ted Baker childrenswear license, both now defunct following Ted Baker’s 2024 insolvency.^{7, 20} No evidence establishes that Next procures directly from, or holds any contract with, Delta Galil itself.

Taken together, the record supports a BRS score of 552 and Tier C (High), driven principally by the Political domain, where the combination of unremarked online retail continuity with Israel, a documented statement-asymmetry against the Russia precedent, and family-level (not corporate) philanthropic ties to Israeli institutions including an IDF veterans’ charity, produces the dossier’s highest domain score (V=6.29). The Military domain returns a clean V=0.00, and the Digital and Economic domains each return a low V=2.50, reflecting narrow, low-directness findings against an otherwise well-documented absence of nexus.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

Next plc traces its corporate origin to Joseph Hepworth & Son, a UK tailoring business founded in 1864, with no defence or state-security lineage. It is an ordinary UK-listed public company on a one-share-one-vote basis with a free float exceeding 95% and no golden share. Its core business is UK and international apparel and homeware retail, supplemented by “Total Platform,” a white-label e-commerce and logistics service Next operates for partner brands including Victoria’s Secret UK (51% Next-owned joint venture with L Brands), Gap UK, Reiss, Laura Ashley, and Childsplay Clothing, and a “Next Label” marketplace hosting more than 1,000 third-party brands. No Israeli brand, supplier, or partner is named among Total Platform’s disclosed participants.

Next’s Israel-facing presence consists solely of a direct-to-consumer e-commerce channel (next.co.il), reported to be operated directly by Next Retail Ltd. rather than through a franchise or third-party operator. No Next-branded physical store, franchise operator, or dealership has been identified in Israel, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights. No Next subsidiary, employing entity, or tax registration in Israel was identified, consistent with an online-only market characterisation.

The company’s disclosed manufacturing supply chain (per its Modern Slavery Transparency Statement 2025-26) is concentrated in Bangladesh, China, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Cambodia, Turkey, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Great Britain, with no Israeli factory or sourcing relationship disclosed.⁶ The sole identified intersection with an Israeli-domiciled corporate entity is indirect: Delta Galil Industries (TASE: DELG), whose subsidiary operates retail branches in West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements, separately holds a worldwide Ted Baker underwear licence unconnected to Next’s own, independently negotiated Ted Baker childrenswear licence.⁷ No evidence establishes any direct procurement or contractual relationship between Next and Delta Galil.

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence was identified of any mechanism connecting Next plc to Israeli military procurement, dual-use goods, defence-prime supply chains, logistical sustainment, munitions, or export-controlled trade. Next is a consumer retailer with no defence-relevant product line, and its only Israel-facing activity is the online retail channel described above.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Next’s business model - mainstream consumer apparel and homeware - structurally precludes most military-nexus vectors; the audit found no SIBAT listing, no UK strategic-export-licence exposure, and no civil-society (Who Profits, AFSC, Stop Wapenhandel) military-grounds naming of Next plc.^{10, 21} The only military-adjacent material identified is unverified and attributed at the family level: reporting on Lord Wolfson of Tredegar’s personal fundraising for a café serving IDF soldiers concerns a different public figure from Next’s CEO and controlling family, and no corporate Next plc link to IDF-welfare funding was found.¹

Named Entities and Evidence Map

No named Israeli defence entity (Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael) or Israeli defence-ministry body has any documented relationship with Next plc. “Nextcom Group,” a Tel Aviv Stock Exchange-listed defence-infrastructure company with confirmed Israeli Ministry of Defence, Elbit and Rafael contracts, is a homonym unrelated to Next plc.¹⁹

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

Next’s disclosed enterprise technology stack - Microsoft Azure (cloud), Tableau (analytics), Dynatrace (application performance monitoring), and Zendesk (AI-assisted customer service) - is entirely non-Israeli.^{8, 9} Next also operates its own “Total Platform” e-commerce/fulfilment infrastructure, licensed to third-party brands, with no Israeli vendor disclosed in that stack.²²

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

No Israeli-domiciled vendor (Check Point, NICE, CyberArk, Cognyte) or Israeli-founded vendor (Verint, SentinelOne, Wiz, Palo Alto Networks) relationship was identified. Next does not publicly disclose its full cybersecurity or in-store surveillance vendor stack, leaving an evidence gap rather than a confirmed negative in those specific areas; no positive evidence of an Israeli-origin product was found in any case. Next is not connected to Israel’s Project Nimbus cloud programme.²³

Named Entities and Evidence Map

The only Israel-adjacent commercial relationship identified in the digital domain is Delta Galil Industries’ Ted Baker underwear licence, a manufacturing (not technology) relationship, structurally separate from Next’s own unrelated Ted Baker childrenswear licence and now lapsed following Ted Baker’s 2024 insolvency.^{7, 20} Consumer aggregator boycott sites (e.g., boycott.thewitness.news) list Next, but the stated grounds concern Wolfson family ownership, not any Next digital or technology operation.²⁴

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

Next’s economic footprint touching Israel/Palestine is confined to (a) an online-only retail channel serving Israeli consumers, generating an estimated NIS 60-70 million/year as of 2016 reporting, and (b) family-level philanthropic capital flows from Wolfson trusts to Israeli institutions, distinct from Next plc as a trading entity.^{12, 14, 15}

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Next does not appear in the OHCHR database of business enterprises linked to Israeli settlement activity, nor in the underlying Special Rapporteur report on the “economy of occupation.”¹¹ Next’s own Modern Slavery Transparency Statement discloses no Israeli sourcing country among its top ten manufacturing hubs.⁶ Next holds no factories, data centres, or real estate in Israel or the occupied territories, no Israeli R&D presence, and no disclosed Israeli-equity or sovereign-bond exposure. Next is not named on the Ethical Consumer “Palestine boycott list.”²⁵ A claim that Next is a “Tier 1” purchaser from, or financial stabiliser of, Delta Galil could not be corroborated and is treated as unverified.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Delta Galil Industries appears in the OHCHR settlement-business database via its subsidiary’s settlement retail branches, and separately holds an unrelated Ted Baker underwear licence to Next’s own childrenswear licence.^{7, 11} The Wolfson Family Charitable Trust and the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust - administered separately from Next plc - have made documented grants to Beit Halochem and to major Israeli universities (Hebrew University, Technion, Weizmann Institute, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University, Bar-Ilan University).^{14, 15} “Nextcom Group” is confirmed as an unrelated homonymous Israeli defence-infrastructure company.¹⁹

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

The strongest documented vector in this dossier is political: (1) Next plc’s documented silence on the Gaza war, contrasted with its vocal, commercially material 2022 exit from Russia; and (2) family-level Wolfson philanthropy directed at Beit Halochem (an IDF-veterans charity) and Israeli academic institutions, run through trusts administered separately from Next plc.^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 15} Next’s CEO, Simon Wolfson, is a Conservative life peer and trustee of the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust and Policy Exchange, but no public evidence identifies him with any pro-Israel advocacy organisation, IDF donation, or settlement-organisation board role.²⁶

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Next does not appear in the Who Profits database, in the UN OHCHR settlement-business database, or on the BDS Movement’s own named priority-target list, and it is not named on the Ethical Consumer “Palestine boycott list.”^{10, 11, 17, 27, 25} No legal, regulatory, or OECD National Contact Point complaint naming Next in connection with occupied-territory operations was identified. Several specific allegations against named individuals were traced and found to be misattributions: a claim of Simon Wolfson’s New Israel Fund board membership was found to actually describe an unrelated peer, Sir Jeremy Beecham;¹⁶ and reporting on a peer “raising funds to feed the IDF” concerns David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Tredegar, a different individual from an unrelated family, with no documented link to Next plc.^{1, 18} Next’s founding narrative (Joseph Hepworth & Son, 1864) carries no defence or state-security lineage, and no evidence was found of Next hosting Israeli officials, accepting Israel-linked state honours, or sponsoring “Brand Israel” cultural campaigns.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Simon Wolfson (CEO), Michael Roney (Chairman), and the wider Next board show no documented affiliation with pro-Israel advocacy bodies (CFI, AIPAC, USISTF) or settlement organisations.²⁸ The Wolfson Family Charitable Trust and Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust are the only entities in the record with a substantiated, if family- rather than corporate-level, Israel-directed philanthropic nexus, including Beit Halochem and major Israeli universities.^{14, 15} “Nextcom Group” is again confirmed unrelated.¹⁹

BDS-1000 Score (V4)

• V_MAX: 6.29 Avg_OTHERS: 1.67
• BRS Score: 552 Tier: C (High)

The overall score is driven almost entirely by Political, where the combination of a documented statement-silence asymmetry (Russia exit vs. Gaza-war silence), continuity of online retail in Israel, and family-level Israeli philanthropic ties to an IDF-veterans charity and Israeli universities generates the dossier’s dominant domain score. Military returns a clean zero, reflecting a rigorously confirmed absence of any military-procurement nexus, while Digital and Economic each return low scores anchored in narrow, low-directness findings (a licensing coincidence with an Israeli-listed manufacturer; an evidence gap in undisclosed security-vendor detail) rather than any confirmed transaction with an Israeli state or defence body. The method applied is scale-free: Impact (I) captures the type of activity, Magnitude (M) the scale, and Proximity (P) the directness of the documented link; scores are evidence-only and were human-vetted against the four domain audits.

Methodology Note

• Scores are derived exclusively from the four domain audits (Military, Digital, Economic, Political); no claim outside those audits is reflected in this dossier.
• The V4 model is scale-free: Impact (I) = type of activity, Magnitude (M) = scale of the activity, Proximity (P) = directness of the link to the Israeli state, military, or settlement enterprise; the domain score is a function of I × M × P.
• A temporal mitigation rule applies: divested, exited, or lapsed operations (e.g., the Ted Baker/Delta Galil licensing overlap, now ended following Ted Baker’s 2024 insolvency) are discounted rather than treated as live exposure.
• Entity attribution follows a no-transitive-guilt principle: family, trust, and individual actions (e.g., Wolfson family philanthropy) are recorded and disclosed but are not scored as corporate acts of Next plc absent evidence of corporate direction or funding.
• Homonym and misattribution corrections are treated as exculpatory findings and documented rather than omitted (e.g., “Nextcom Group,” the David Wolfson/Simon Wolfson conflation, the New Israel Fund misattribution).
• Where audit checks found nothing, the dossier states “No public evidence identified” rather than inferring absence of a relationship from silence alone; evidence gaps (e.g., undisclosed cybersecurity vendor stack) are flagged as gaps, not treated as findings.