The Hut Group sales break £500m
Cheshire-based online retail giant The Hut Group, home to well-known online brands such as Myprotein and lookfantastic, has seen its annual sales increase by 50% to over £500m on the back of international growth and a raft of brand acquisitions through the year.
Sales at the private equity-backed group increased to £501m for the year to the end of December (2015: £334m), while underlying profits grew 67% to £50m.
International Sales were up 89% to £316m (2015: £167m), constituting 63% of group sales, and according the group this rose to over 70% in the first quarter of 2017.
The Northwich-headquartered company created 1,200 UK jobs during the year, taking its total workforce to 3,100 and it said it expects to create a further 3,000 jobs over the next two years.
An impressive £63m was spent on acquisitions to develop The Hut Group’s own brand proposition as well as geographical reach of its beauty supply chain, while £153m was spent on physical infrastructure projects including manufacture, distribution, supply chain and office accommodation. This included two food production and distribution facilities commissioned – a 1m sq ft Cheshire based facility (Omega) and a Kentucky-based US facility.
It also invested £91m in the group’s technology platform to further enhance its functionality and globalisation capability. It now operates on 47 languages and 30 currencies, is supported by 23 payment options.
Matthew Moulding, chief executive of The Hut Group, said: “I am delighted to report another milestone year for The Hut Group, with THG firmly cementing its place as a truly global business, and driving further our ambition to be the clear No.1 in online Health & Beauty across the world.
“In 2016, we launched over 100 websites across the group, significantly extending our international reach, which was further highlighted by delivering international sales growth of 89%.
“We also continued our evolution of our health and beauty offering, with the acquisitions of Grow Gorgeous, Skinstore.com, SkincareRX.com, and the prestigious Hale Country Club, the latter providing us the opportunity to develop a global centre of fitness and wellbeing excellence. In addition to these initiatives, towards the end of 2016 we further expanded our presence in global nutrition with the acquisition of the US based Ideal brands.
“As an addition, post year, we completed the acquisition of Hangar Seven, a leading British content creation business for video, photography and branding. With customers demanding to view creative content largely through video, we are investing heavily in creative resources to ensure we lead the way in delivering the best possible user experience across all corners of the world. This move in particular broadens our THG Platform proposition and complements our world class technology platform with market leading content and brand creation.”
