The Hut wins BoS’ Entrepreneur Challenge

ONLINE retailer The Hut Group won the Bank of Scotland’s national Entrepreneur Challenge at a ceremony in London last night.

It is the second year in a row the accolade has gone to a North West business. Last year Nelson-based telecoms firm Daisy Communications won the competition and its chief executive Matt Riley attended the same Lancashire primary school as The Hut’s co-founder Matthew Moulding. 

The Entrepreneur Challenge offers the winner a £5m interest free loan and business mentoring. This year’s mentor is the Scottish billionaire Sir Tom Hunter, last time it was Sir Philip Green.

The Hut Group, which sells goods through The Hut.com and manages online trading for large retailers such as Asda and Phones4u, won the regional heat in Manchester last month.

The Northwich-based business was founded by Matthew Moulding and John Gallemore in 2004. Mr Moulding previously worked with Phones4u founder John Caudwell and led the Caudwell Group’s sale of the Distribution Group to Doughty Hanson for £347m in 2006.

The Hut now has a turnover of £27m and employs 71 staff. It will use the loan to fast track its expansion plans.