Health retailer The Hut hails landmark year as earnings soar following a rise in overseas expansion
Online health and beauty retailer The Hut Group, whose company tagline is "Attention to retail", has posted a rise in underlying earnings of 33 per cent to £30m in 2015.
International sales soared to £167m, up 46 per cent after growing its international business and now accounts for more than 50 per cent of the groups sales.
The group, backed by ex-Marks & Spencer boss Lord Rose as well as former Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, plans to create 2,000 jobs over the next three years across the North West, adding to 630 new jobs in 2015, bring its staff total to 1,800.
The Hut sold a 19.2 per cent stake to private equity giant KKR for £100m in 2014.
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Matthew Moulding, chief executive, said:
We reached the milestone of eight million active customers worldwide, following significant investment in our product offer, delivery options, customer experience and marketing. We now trade internationally in 21 languages, supported by 19 currencies and 16 localised payment options.
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The online retailer, which KKR and BlackRock both hold shares in, launched 22 websites over the year, taking its total to 72.
Group bought back £20.3m of shares in the year, taking total share buy-backs to £41.9m in the last two years.
The Hut, founded in 2004, has been hailed as one of the UK's fastest growing online retailers and sells third-party branded or own-label health and beauty products across websites Myprotein, Mio Skincare, HQ Hair, Lookfantastic, The Hut, Mio Skincare and Mankind.