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Despite global plans, the man behind Joules remains rooted in its English rural heritage.
Tom Joule is a man with a plan. A five-year plan, which incorporates everything from stores and wholesale to click-and-collect and retailing on far-flung international shores.
His lifestyle business has come a long way since 1989 when Joule sold his first products at a small horse show in Leicestershire. It now turns over almost £80m a year from 78 stores and more than 500 wholesale accounts in the UK and Republic of Ireland. As one of this year's Christmas winners - revenues in the nine weeks to January 5 increased 24.5% - and with a £22m investment secured in November from LDC, a private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, Joules is in fine form to enter its next stage of growth.
"I've been doing this now for 25 years and I've made loads of mistakes along the way, but you learn from all of that and you've got to do what's right for the business at the right time," says Joule, tucking into a slice of carrot cake and a pot of tea in his father's rustic coffee shop, which is next door to the first Joules store in his home town of Market Harborough in Leicestershire.
"I don't think we would have had the infrastructure to take private equity money earlier," he says. "There's a sense of responsibility as you've got to give them a return."
LDC has taken a minority stake in Joules as a result of the deal, a move which Joule said has brought an "uplifting feeling" into the business.
"Staff love the fact we've all been working hard on putting together a five-year plan, which we are five months into. We've gone out to the market and got enough money to support that plan so we can deliver it," he explains. "At the end of the day Joules is bigger than one person -...