I quit Canada and created £1bn Castore empire
Cast your eye over the numerous growth lists that get churned out multiple times a year and there is one name that keeps cropping up towards the sharp end – Castore.
The Manchester-headquartered brand has been on a skyrocketing journey since being founded by two Merseyside brothers in 2016.
But Tom Beahon, who shares CEO duties with his brother Phil, has credited some of the success to their time working in Canada.
“I loved working in the City – I learned so much working in leveraged finance”, Beahon told an up-coming episode of Morning Wire‘s Boardroom Uncovered podcast.
“You would meet ten different businesses a week. You’d meet ten different CEOs a week”, he said.
“If you’re interested in business, there’s no better place to be to learn how the businesses compete.
“Where do they sit in the market? How do they generate profits? How resilient are their revenues? Where does it go wrong? Why does it go wrong?
“I was a young guy and I was like a sponge. What a privileged opportunity to learn from all of these amazing businesses and people.”
Beahon worked at Lloyds Bank from September 2012 to July 2015 while his brother held several roles at Deloitte.
Brain storming ideas for Castore at 5am
But despite enjoying working in the City, Beahon said it was never the plan to stay.
He said: “There was never any doubt in my mind, and I know my brother was the same, that that was always a finite period of our lives.
“The goal was always, let’s absorb as much knowledge as we can from the society, from all these great businesses that you got to meet, so that we can apply that knowledge to starting other businesses.
“I’m three years older than my brother, so I came down a little bit earlier.
“But right from the beginning we lived together in a tiny flat. We would wake up at 5am, talk about ideas for a business between 5.30am and 8.30am, leave to go to work, get home at 6.30pm at night, talk about business ideas again until 9pm, go to bed and then wake up and do it again and again.
“A lot of people think that’s crazy, but if you really want to do something, it’s through that process of staying up later than other people, getting up earlier than other people.”
Brand now worth around £1bn
In November last year, Castore was named as the UK’s fastest growing retailer.
The company topped the list from Retail Index which analyses revenue growth over a two-year period.
Based on the figures used for the ranking, Castore’s sales grew seven-fold from 2021 to the £115m it reported in the year to 31 January, 2023.
A month earlier, Morning Wire reported that the business had slumped to a loss despite its sales jumping by £75m.
The company had posted a pre-tax loss of £28.8m for the year to 4 February, 2024, after the brand achieved a pre-tax profit of £14.6m in the prior 12 months.
However, the results also showed its turnover surged from £115m to £190.3m over the same period.
Castore’s accounts show that it incurred exceptional costs of more than £24.4m in the year which pushed it into the red.
However, even before taking into account those extra costs, the firm’s operating profit was slashed in the year from £16.5m to £399,148.
In November 2023, a fundraising deal saw Castore’s valuation increase to almost £1bn.