All hail latest king of retail?
Secret billionaire weathers high street storm
A BILLIONAIRE dubbed the “new king of the high street” has seen sales at his two biggest store chains reach nearly £900million. Publicity-shy Philip Day, who was brought up on a council estate near Manchester, has built a retail empire which includes the Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Peacocks, Jane Norman, Austin Reed and Bonmarche. Accounts for the company that oversees the first two of those show it made a profit before tax of £92.4m on £858.9m of sales in the 18 months to August last year. That compared with profits of £86.1m and revenues of £582.9m, which was over a shorter 12 month period to the end of February 2017.
Day’s growing business comes as Sir Philip Green, once seen as the king of the high street, battles to keep his own empire afloat (see right).
And while Green’s wealth is estimated to have dropped below £1bn, Day’s is now reckoned to be £1.2bn.
Day used to be based in Dubai but last month relocated to Switzerland.
He could be in line for a windfall after the latest accounts of EWM Topco showed it declared a £156m dividend and paid £116m.
Accounts of its parent company, owed by Day, have yet to be published.
However, previous documents show Day collected a £30.5m dividend in 2016.
The Topco accounts said the firm was “well placed to make the best of the current trading environment”.
The Peacocks chain, it said, was benefiting from shoppers increasingly rejecting “disposable fashion” on environmental grounds.
However, it said its Edinburgh Woollen Mill stores had been hit by a drop in overseas tourists.