What is Ben Francis and family’s net worth?
▼ £725 million
£900 million in 2023
Athleisure has been one of the fastest-growing segments in the fashion industry, as sales for labels as varied as Sweaty Betty and Brunello Cucinelli show. Ben Francis is taking full advantage. Gymshark is expanding with new ranges and new stores.
The brand makes more than 90 per cent of its revenues online — more than $1 million a day on its US site alone, according to Forbes magazine. It is now expanding its bricks and mortar footprint, opening a second permanent store in the Westfield Stratford City mall in east London — a vast 7,000 sq ft space. Its other shop is on Regent Street in central London. A 12-month pop-up store in New York will open later this year and an “immersive Gymshark experience” is planned for Dubai.
Francis, 31, is diversifying, going beyond “gym kit” into posh sweats and hoodies under the Everywear label. The range, exclusively available in Selfridges, “embodies the intersection of performance and elegance,” Francis says. “We are redefining the boundaries of activewear and bringing our community the premium products they deserve.”
The latest figures released by the Solihull-based company show sales are soaring — although profits are not rising as fast as in recent years. Sales were up 20 per cent in the year to July 2023. Profits before tax for the year however, fell for the second year in a row — more than halving to £13.1 million.
Advertisement
In what the company described as “tough trading conditions” gross profit margin fell five percentage points to 60 per cent. Earnings before interest, tax and accounting items, and before exceptionals, rose 14 per cent to £45.3 million.
North America generated £250 million of Gymshark’s sales last year. The company has taken on a lease for its large distribution centre in Pennsylvania. International sales overall rose 12.5 per cent, down from 16.7 per cent the year before.
The company, which employs 853 people, is in the process of working out how to reduce its use of virgin polyester and nylon, its two highest-volume raw materials, and is drawing up “a preferred materials list that ensures we are not reliant on virgin synthetic fibre”.
• Ben Francis: ‘There’s nothing harder than making the first £5m’
Francis set up Gymshark when he was 19 and worked as a delivery driver for Pizza Hut in Bromsgrove. He had started out selling health supplements with his school friend Lewis Morgan but the pair changed tack after realising margins on clothing were higher. Francis’s mum, Nikki, taught him how to sew, and he began making muscle vests and hoodies in his family’s garage using ultra-soft fabrics, instead of the scratchy synthetics with which he had grown up. Recruiting influencers to flaunt his wares on Instagram helped to drive sales.
Advertisement
Gymshark started taking off when he was a student at Aston University, so he dropped out to run it full time. Although Covid-19 shuttered gyms for months, sales grew strongly during the pandemic as millions of Brits began exercising from home. A fundraising with the US investors General Atlantic in 2020 pumped up the value of the brand to £1 billion. Understated and down-to-earth, Francis celebrated with a meal at Nando’s. “I’m really boring,” he once admitted. “All I do is focus on Gymshark. I think growing up in the West Midlands helped. It was fairly chill.”
Since the General Atlantic deal, Gymshark’s sales have increased by 50 per cent. There are now offices in Denver, London and a large campus in the Midlands.
Gymshark’s leaner year leads us to trim the value of the business from £1.25 billion to £1 billion — putting a £700 million price on Francis’s stake. Share sales and other assets, including a farm in the Cotswolds, where he hangs out with Kaleb Cooper of Clarkson’s Farm fame, add another £25 million.
Francis is married to Robin Gallant, 33, a Canadian personal trainer and YouTuber who devises his punishing regimen of deadlifts, squats and bench presses. The couple announced the arrival of identical twin sons on Christmas Eve 2022.
Last year Gymshark’s success propelled Francis on to the Sunday Times Tax List for the first time.
Advertisement
“This country and its taxes afforded me a free education, free healthcare and, as the child of a nurse, it also paid my mum’s salary,” he said after breaking into the rankings of those who contribute the most to the exchequer. He is the first patron of the Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital charity.
View the full list to see where money was made and lost in the last year
