Economic Audit: Next

Supply Chain & Sourcing Relationships

Authoritative settlement-business database screen. Next plc, Next Retail Ltd, and its named controlling principals do not appear in the OHCHR Database of Business Enterprises, a 158-entity list updated 26 September 2025 and broken down by the OHCHR press release into 138 Israeli, 12 European, 6 American, 1 Canadian, and 1 Chinese firms, with no UK apparel retailer listed ¹². A direct text search of the OHCHR Special Rapporteur report A/HRC/59/23 (“From economy of occupation to economy of genocide,” 2 July 2025) found no mention of “Next” or “Next plc” in the extractable text ³. Next does not appear as a company entry in the Who Profits full company database ⁴. Next also does not appear in the Don’t Buy Into Occupation 2024 (DBIO-IV) company-list annex, although the document’s graphic/vector PDF format prevented exhaustive text confirmation, so this absence should be treated as provisional rather than certain ⁵. No public evidence identified naming Next plc, its subsidiaries, or its controlling principals in any Tier-1 authoritative settlement-business database.

Direct sourcing categories. No public evidence identified of direct supplier relationships with Israeli produce/agricultural exporters such as Mehadrin, Hadiklaim, Galilee Export, or Agrexco successors; this is consistent with Next operating as a clothing, footwear, and homeware retailer rather than a food importer. No public evidence identified of an importer-of-record structure for goods of OPT origin, or of seasonal sourcing patterns tied to produce shipping windows. Next’s own disclosed factory sourcing footprint is concentrated in China, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, per its Modern Slavery Transparency Statement 2025-26; Israel is not listed among Next’s disclosed manufacturing or sourcing countries ⁶.

Indirect brand-licensing intersection with an Israeli-listed apparel group. Next’s supply chain intersects indirectly, through licensing architecture rather than direct procurement, with Delta Galil Industries (TASE: DELG), an Israeli apparel group whose 80%-owned subsidiary Delta Israel Brands operates retail branches in Ma’ale Adumim (West Bank) and in Pisgat Ze’ev/Ramot (East Jerusalem), as documented by Who Profits as of October 2024 ⁷. Delta Galil separately holds a global licensing agreement, signed in 2018, with the Ted Baker brand for men’s underwear and loungewear ⁸, and separately acquired the Bogart Group, a Hong Kong-headquartered manufacturer with factories in China, Thailand, and Myanmar (no Israel manufacturing), which supplies private-label lingerie to Victoria’s Secret globally ⁹. Next plc, in a structurally separate and independently negotiated arrangement, holds its own licence with the Ted Baker brand covering childrenswear, from 2019 ¹⁰, and holds a 51% joint-venture stake in Victoria’s Secret UK & Ireland retail and digital operations, entered in 2020-21 ¹¹¹². These are two distinct licensing relationships that happen to share the Ted Baker brand name, plus a joint venture with a global customer of Delta Galil’s; no primary-source evidence was found establishing that Next plc directly procures goods from, or holds a contractual relationship with, Delta Galil itself. A characterization asserting that Next “rescued a major client of Delta Galil” through the Victoria’s Secret UK joint venture, and that the Ted Baker licence “gives Delta Galil control over the design and manufacture of Next-retailed goods,” appears only in third-party AI-search-engine synthesis of a site (openintel.uk) that returned HTTP 404 on all direct-fetch attempts and could not be corroborated against Next, Victoria’s Secret, Ted Baker plc, or Delta Galil primary disclosures ¹³. This claim is treated as unverified.

Third-party marketplace model. Next’s Total Platform third-party marketplace arrangement, which has onboarded partners such as Gap for UK operations, is documented in UK retail trade press and is disclosed as a driver of Next’s growth, with no Israeli brand or supplier identified among the disclosed marketplace participants ¹⁴¹⁵.

Product Origin, Labeling & Regulatory Compliance

No public evidence identified of settlement-origin “Produce of Israel” mislabeling implicating Next, a claim category that pertains to agricultural produce and does not correspond to Next’s clothing, footwear, and homeware product categories. No public evidence identified of any country-of-origin labeling compliance or enforcement action specific to Next. Next’s Modern Slavery Transparency Statement 2025-26 discloses a country-risk heat-map methodology and a specific named policy addressing the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but no analogous named policy addressing sourcing or labeling from Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or the Golan Heights was found in the retrieved material ⁶. Direct text extraction of Next’s full Corporate Responsibility Report PDF was not possible within this research session owing to file format and size limitations, so the absence of Israel/OPT-specific labeling language in that document should be treated as an evidence gap rather than a confirmed absence ⁶.

Investment, Capital & Financial Exposure

No public evidence identified of foreign direct investment by Next plc in Israel or the OPT, whether via acquisitions, factories, data centers, logistics assets, or real estate. No public evidence identified of any R&D or innovation centre, technology partnership, or accelerator relationship linking Next plc to Israel.

Next plc is an independent, London Stock Exchange-listed FTSE 100 company with no controlling corporate parent ¹⁶. Institutional ownership is reported at roughly 81-83%, with BlackRock, Vanguard funds, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Capital Group, Legal & General, M&G, Schroders, and Norges Bank named among disclosed holders, alongside the Next Esop Trust (an employee share trust) and FMR LLC ¹⁶. No disclosed holder was identified as Israeli-domiciled or Israel-focused capital ¹⁶. No public evidence identified of portfolio or fund exposure by Next or any parent entity to Israeli-domiciled companies, Israeli sovereign bonds, or Israel-focused investment funds. Next plc is a retailer rather than a financial institution, and no evidence was found of it underwriting, lending to, or holding disclosed Israeli sovereign-debt or Israel Bonds positions; this reflects a structural absence of the type of holdings disclosure a bank or asset manager would file, rather than a researched negative against such disclosures.

Operational Presence & Market Activity

Next operates no physical retail stores in Israel. In January 2016, Next explicitly declined to open brick-and-mortar stores in Israel, stating that a franchise-recruitment banner on its Israeli site was a standard notice replicated across all of Next’s international sites rather than a concrete expansion plan, and that opening physical stores could force the discontinuation of online sales to Israeli consumers ¹⁷¹⁸. Next’s Israel-facing franchise inquiry page remains live on next.co.il in the same generic format described in that 2016 reporting ¹⁹. No subsequent public evidence of a change to this posture was identified for 2023-2025; Next appears to continue serving Israel exclusively through online delivery via next.co.il/NextDirect, though this continuity is an inference from the absence of contrary reporting rather than a recent primary confirmation. No public evidence identified of a registered Israeli operating entity, employee headcount, or tax registration behind the next.co.il Israel-facing online business; the legal identity of the entity operating that site could not be determined from public registry searches. No public evidence identified of Next plc characterizing Israel as a strategic, growth, or regional-hub market in its annual reports (January 2024 and January 2025 editions checked); Israel was not mentioned in the retrievable excerpts. The only quantified market data point identified is a 2016 third-party press estimate of NIS 60-70 million in annual online sales to Israeli consumers, concentrated in infant and children’s clothing, which at that time ranked Next among the top five online retailers used by Israeli consumers ¹⁷.

Corporate Structure & Foundational Ties

Next plc was not founded or incorporated in Israel; it is a UK-founded, UK-incorporated retailer with its legal domicile and operational headquarters in Enderby, Leicestershire, England ²⁰. No evidence of a dual or legacy Israeli headquarters, an “acquired Israeli identity,” or any Israeli operating company acquired or controlled by Next plc was identified. No public evidence identified of Israeli state ownership, government board appointees, government contracts, or a critical-infrastructure designation connecting Next plc to the Israeli state. No public evidence identified of golden shares, founder shares, or charter provisions tying Next plc’s governance to Israeli state policy. On the available evidence, Next was not founded in Israel, its headquarters and principal management are not in Israel, and there is no evidence of Israeli tax residency, permanent-establishment status, or Israeli beneficial ownership or control, ownership instead being dispersed across UK, US, and global institutional capital as detailed above ¹⁶.

Controlling-principal charitable ties. The Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust (Charity No. 238043) has as its current trustees The Hon. Andrew Daniel Wolfson (Chair), The Lord Jonathan Neil Mendelsohn, Deborah Sarah Edwards, The Lord Simon Adam Wolfson (CEO of Next plc), and Dr Sara Levene, per UK Charity Commission filings ²¹. The Trust awarded £5.90 million in charitable grants in the year to 5 April 2025 against £3.48 million income that year, with a five-year expenditure trend of £5.44m (2021), £6.11m (2022), £5.53m (2023), £7.11m (2024), and £6.05m (2025); the Trust’s specific grant-recipient breakdown was not disclosed in the accessible register extract ²². Andrew Wolfson, Chair of the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust and brother of Next CEO Simon Wolfson, has served as a trustee of Beit Halochem UK since April 2016 and as its Chairman since May 2018 ²³²⁴. Beit Halochem UK’s own published Supporters page lists “The Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust” at Founder Benefactor level, alongside the separate “The Wolfson Family Charitable Trust” (also Founder Benefactor level) and “Lord David and Lady Louise Wolfson” (Patrons level); Beit Halochem UK supports the rehabilitation and welfare of disabled IDF veterans as the UK fundraising affiliate of the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization in Israel ²⁵. The Wolfson Family Charitable Trust (Charity No. 228382) is a separate legal charity from the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust, with current trustees The Hon Mrs Laura Helen Wolfson Townsley (Chair), Sir Michael Pepper, Alexandra Jane Wolfson Halamish, The Hon Mrs Elizabeth Wolfson Peltz, Lord Turnberg, Sir Ian Gainsford, Sir Bernard Anthony Rix, Dame Janet Frances Wolfson de Botton, and Martin Paisner; Simon Wolfson is not listed as a trustee of this trust in the current register ²⁶. Per a secondary source citing this trust’s own grants table for the year ending 31 March 2021, the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust allocated £125,000 to the Jerusalem Foundation and £25,000 to Beit Halochem (Tel Aviv) that year, though the currency of this specific grant level as of 2025-26 is unconfirmed ²⁷.

A claim circulating in secondary/activist sources that Simon Wolfson is a trustee of “UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers” (UK-AWIS) does not hold up against the Charity Commission register, which lists that charity’s four trustees as Miguel Gerado Abadi, Benny Shachor, Colonel Richard Kemp, and Joshua Swidler, with no Wolfson family member appearing ²⁸. UK-AWIS is independently notable as the UK fundraising arm of an Israeli organization described by Middle East Eye as funded by the Israeli Defence Ministry and working closely with the IDF, and was subject to a Charity Commission regulatory compliance case opened in early 2024 and a formal regulator warning over a fundraising video appealing for donations to support Israeli forces in the Gaza war ²⁹³⁰. No corporate or personal Next-plc-principal link to UK-AWIS was substantiated. A further secondary-source claim that Simon Wolfson is “a board member of the New Israel Fund” does not hold up against the cited primary article, which shows that description applies to a different individual, Sir Jeremy Beecham, elevated to the Lords in the same peerage round as Wolfson; the article describes Wolfson only as a donor to a political leadership campaign and CEO of Next ³¹. Simon Wolfson has also been a trustee of the think tank Policy Exchange since December 2008, and the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust donated more than £3 million to Policy Exchange between 2007 and 2022 per a secondary source, included here as background on Wolfson’s institutional network with no direct Israel-nexus claim attaching to this specific funding line ³². Next plc itself, as distinct from its CEO’s family trusts, does not appear on the Beit Halochem UK supporters list or any other Israel-linked charity donor list identified ²⁵.

Boycott-tracker context. Next plc is not named on the Ethical Consumer “Palestine boycott list” page ³³, and Ethical Consumer’s company profile for Next plc, updated 7 November 2025, does not display a specific Israel-Palestine rating in the accessible content despite the site’s general Israel-Palestine rating category launched in October 2025 ³⁴. Two lower-provenance activist/boycott aggregator sites, Masjid Al-Aqsa’s “BDS List” and the Israel Boycott Guide by The Witness, do list Next, but in both cases the retrievable rationale reduces to the Wolfson family’s ownership/leadership of Next plc and the family trusts’ charitable giving to Israeli causes described above, without citing any direct corporate transaction, supply contract, or settlement-linked activity by Next plc itself ³⁵³⁶.

Profit Repatriation & Economic Contribution

No line-item Israel revenue disclosure was found in Next plc’s public annual reports; the only quantified figure identified for Next’s Israel-facing business is the 2016 third-party press estimate of NIS 60-70 million in annual online sales ¹⁷. No public evidence identified of a profit-flow direction attributable to Israel, consistent with Next having no Israeli-domiciled ownership structure and no disclosed Israel-based operating subsidiary generating profit for outward repatriation. No public evidence identified of any government or industry designation of Next as a sector anchor, key employer, or infrastructure provider within the Israeli economy.

End Notes