One of Manchester’s most successful firms to create 2,000 jobs this year
Online beauty and wellbeing firm The Hut Group saw it profits soar by more than 50% last year.
The Manchester based firm has filed an impressive set of results with growth in sales and profits both overseas and in the UK.
And one of the city’s biggest success stories of recent times said it expects to create 2,000 jobs over the next 12 months.
Group sales up were 47% to £736m and international sales were up 62% to £512m.
Gross profit increased by 51% to £318m and EBITDA was up 38% to £69m.
There was strong growth in brand revenues, with 58% of group sales coming from own brands.
This month the group increased its banking facility to £600m, for use in significant strategic initiatives and further potential acquisitions.
The Hut Group made £164m worth of strategic acquisitions during the year, improving the group’s end-to-end retail ecosystem, building its brand proposition, and developing the geographical reach of its beauty supply chain.
Acquisitions included Hangar Seven and UK2 – a digital content agency and web-hosting business respectively – ESPA, Illamasqua, RY.com.au and Europe’s largest subscription beauty box supplier, GLOSSYBOX.
And additional £39m was spent on physical infrastructure projects including manufacturing, distribution, supply chain and office facilities.
This included two food production and distribution facilities which became fully operational in 2017 – a 1m sq. ft. Cheshire based facility and a US facility in Kentucky – in addition to the commissioning of a production and logistics centre in Poland, bringing next-day delivery to continental Europe.
The Hut Group – Health
Work has also begun on a new 870,000 sq ft head office at Manchester Airport. The work will be completed in stages over the next two years and will ultimately house around 10,000 employees
The Hut Group invested heavily in recruitment creating 1,884 jobs and growing its global workforce to over 4,000 by the end of the year.
The firm now employs staff representing 66 nationalities and working in offices located in 10 cities around the globe, in the UK, USA, Europe and Australia.
The average age of a Hut Group employee is 29 and the company expects to create a further 2,000 new jobs in 2018.
Chief executive Matthew Moulding said: “2017 was a year of significant development and growth for The Hut Group, as we invested in our infrastructure, our technology platform, our people and our brands.
“The Hut Group is now firmly a global player and it is particularly pleasing to see over 70% of Group sales coming from overseas, and 58% of total sales being of our own brands.
“With our growing, talented workforce, our leading brands and our cutting-edge technology and infrastructure, we look forward to a further year of growth in 2018.”
The firm was also awarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise this year in the International Trade Category.
