The CEO of a Manchester-based company has made 74 workers at the firm millionaires after gifting a total of £1billion to employees in shares.
Matt Moulding, 48, founder of The Hut Group, said he has gifted around 430 staff shares in the company over the last ten years.
This includes those working as drivers, warehouse operatives and secretaries at the company, jobs often overlooked when bonuses are handed out.
Speaking to the Mirror Mr Moulding said: ‘We have created more millionaires than any other company in British corporate history.
Hut Group founder Matthew Moulding and wife Jodie (pictured). Mr Moulding said he has gifted around 430 staff shares in the company over the last ten years
‘The shares are 100 per cent gifted, no-one has had to pay anything. We have genuinely changed so many lives.’
Of those who have received the shares 74 are now millionaires as a result, with the company enjoying exponential success in recent years.
Mr Moulding added that he plans to award more shares to those working for him, with £175 million earmarked for hand out.
The techfirm is behind brands such as LookFantastic, GlossyBox, MyProtein, exante and MyVitamins. In addition to it’s brands, investors are especially interested in its online shopping technology, which it licenses to companies such as Asda and Tesco.
The Hut Group Founder and Chief Executive Matthew Moulding poses in Manchester, United Kingdom in 2019
Mr Moulding with Boris Johnson. The founder saw a surge in the firm’s share price land him a £830million pay out in November
Mr Moulding’s 25 per cent stake in the company is said to be worth £1.6billion, he donates his entire salary to charity.
Those at the firm who have benefited from his generosity include a driver who has amassed £40,000 in addition to his salary over the last two years of working for the company – allowing him to buy a new car and take his family on holiday to the US and Canada, Mirror reports.
Another worker, a senior manager, 30, told The Mirror that he had started at the company as an apprentice and was from a working class background. He now holds £600,000 worth of shares and has sold £100,000 worth of shares to buy a home and pay for his wedding.
Mr Moulding, the selfmade shopping tycoon, was moved to gift more shares last month after a surge in the firm’s share price landed him a £830million pay out.
Self-made online shopping tycoon Matt Moulding (centre) went to a state school, before studying industrial economics at Nottingham University
The payout caps a remarkable transformation for Mr Moulding, who started working life as a pot washer at his local pub and describes his background as ‘typical working class’.
He grew up in Colne, a market town north of Burnley, his father a road worker laying tarmac and his mother a homemaker.
Mr Moulding went to a state school, before studying industrial economics at Nottingham University.
Flashing the cash: Hut Group’s founder and fitness fanatic Matt Moulding (above in red shorts)
Now, his family has a fortune of £600 million, with the tycoon tightly controlling his vast empire through his iPhone, working long hours and drinking 20 shots of coffee a day – though he finds time to holiday with his wife and four children in the Maldives and Dubai.
Mr Moulding also seems determined to maintain his links to the north, rarely travelling for business and encouraging potential investors to visit him in Manchester.
On a typical day, he wakes up at 6am and checks his messages on his iPhone, before starting working at 7am.
He takes a mid-morning break to go to the gym – not missing a day of working out for several years.
Mr Moulding has two 30-minute meetings throughout the day and is fuelled by coffee, before arriving home to his children.