White hot £200m sales for Chrissie
CLOTHING, homeware and fragrance business The White Company has defied the gloom in the retail sector with record sales approaching £200 million last year.
Founded by entrepreneur Chrissie Rucker in 1994 to provide ‘impeccably stylish, everyday luxury’, the company has 57 stores in the UK, US and Ireland.
Turnover shot up 8 per cent to £198.4 million in the year to March 25, 2017, with pre-tax profits rising to £17.3 million.
The company said all areas of the business were ‘performing strongly’. But it decided against paying a dividend, having paid out £17.5 million the previous year.
Rucker is understood to have collected £1.7million in pay and bonuses as highestpaid director.
She came up with the idea of The White Company after struggling to find anywhere to buy high quality bed linen for a reasonable price. She used her £6,000 savings to set up the firm then expanded into other areas.
The business is controlled by Bectin which is jointly owned by Rucker and her husband Nick Wheeler – founder of men’s clothing chain Charles Tyrwhitt.
The couple – who have four children and live in a 17th Century manor house in Buckinghamshire – have built up a fortune estimated at £100 million.
They were awarded ‘his and hers’ OBEs for services to the retail industry in the New Year’s honours list.