Plumber to the stars aims for £100m turnover with strong growth pipeline
Charlie Mullins reveals expansion plans after new customers in capital help to drive record sales
PIMLICO Plumbers’ multi-millionaire founder is hoping turnover at his business will reach £100m in the next five years after sales for the year to May hit a record level.
Charlie Mullins, the boss of the London-based boiler repair group, said a hiring spree during the period helped his firm win over more Londoners and attract an extra £5m in sales.
The business, which has fixed the pipes and boilers of a number of celebrities including Simon Cowell, said its sales shot up 20pc for the year to May 31, with turnover at £35m.
“The plan is to continue to expand at a pace which I hope will in the next five years take us to the next level, where I expect to be talking about annual numbers in excess of £100m,” Mr Mullins said.
The record run for the group comes despite some challenges facing the 64-year-old during the year, including losing a landmark legal battle against a former employee and facing a deluge of abuse after backing a legal challenge to give Parliament a vote on Brexit.
A strong remainer, he said Brexit would be a “major enemy” of economic growth. He told The Daily Telegraph earlier this year his warnings were dismissed, leaving him disappointed with the outcome of the vote and disillusioned with politicians in general.
Already frustrated by the Brexit vote, the prominent Conservative supporter then lost a court battle with former employee Gary Smith over workers’ rights during the year, with the Court of Appeal agreeing that freelance plumbers should be granted sick pay, the minimum wage and paid holiday. Mr Mullins said earlier this month that the Supreme Court would now review the decision, arguing that reports linking the case to similar legal battles with Uber drivers and Deliveroo food couriers have “no comparison” to that of a plumber earning £150,000 a year.
That ruling will be key to a business in the midst of an expansion drive, with the company recently pouring £1m into refurbishing its Lambeth headquarters after hiring 25 engineers and 15 support staff. It is now aiming to add an extra floor to that building by early next year.
The founder kept up his TV and radio appearances during the year, appearing on Channel 4’s How’d You Get So Rich? and last month criticising Jeremy Corbyn in a BBC Radio 4 interview. Now Britain’s richest plumber, the self-made millionaire grew up on a south London council estate and dropped out of school at 15 with no qualifications.
He set up his business in the basement of an estate agent in Pimlico in 1979 with a second-hand van and a bag of tools.