Former Spice Girl's fashion brand turned over £34 million
last year compared to David Beckham's marketing and sponsorship deals which
pulled in £17m. Victoria Beckham has followed her husband David’s lead by
building a second career even more lucrative than her first, new figures show.
The former Spice Girl has built up her fashion brand from a
modest start-up to a company turning
over £34min the last financial year, with
brand Victoria now rivalling brand David as a money-making machine.
The couple are still very much reliant on David for their
personal income, however, as Victoria’s company made a net loss while David’s
companies, which have few overheads as they mainly deal with selling his image
rights, made £12.7m profit.
The success of Victoria’s fashion house means it is expected
to go into profit in the medium term, meaning she could one day be the main
breadwinner in the family.
Accounts also show that the couple restructured their
businesses, pooling their resources into one umbrella company which paid each
of them a £3m dividend. A similar amount was paid to their long-term manager
Simon Fuller, who is the third shareholder in the parent company, Beckham Brand
Holdings.
Having paid themselves £3m each last year, they have already
paid themselves £7m each this year, a figure which is likely to rise still
further before the year’s end.
Victoria Beckham’s unqualified success has silenced the
critics who dismissed her eponymous fashion label as a vanity project.
Since founding her company in 2008 she has grown it into a
business employing 100 people, with a store in London, an online business and
proposed new stores in Hong Kong, the Middle East and the US.
As well as her ready to wear Victoria Beckham collection and
handbags, which cost up to £18,000 each, it sells denim, eye makeup and the
Victoria, Victoria Beckham brand, which is slightly less formal than her
mainline label. Sales have grown by 2,900 per cent over the past five years.
As well as being named designer brand of the year of the
British Fashion Awards in 2011, Mrs Beckham was named Entrepreneur of the Year
2014 by Management Today magazine for creating “a company that is both real and
wildly successful”.
The magazine, which estimated her wealth at £210m, said she
was “an adept exploiter of her own celebrity value”.
David Beckham retired from football in 2013, becoming so
wealthy by the end of his career that he donated his entire £3.4m salary from
his final year as a player at Paris Saint-Germain to two children’s charities.
He is now the highest-paid ex-sportsman in the world,
through marketing and advertising deals with companies including Adidas,
Diageo, H&M, Breitling, Jaguar and China Auto Rental and Sky Sports.
He also earns millions more from other business ventures,
which are understood to have taken his total earnings to £50.8m last year,
according to Forbes magazine.
As part of the restructuring of their companies, David
resigned from Victoria Beckham Ltd at the end of last year, having set up his
own new company, David Beckham Ventures, in August 2014, of which Victoria is
not a director.
A source said the move was “to allow both businesses to grow
in their own different ways”. Victoria’s company has high overheads and
seasonal fluctuations, meaning it needs to borrow money to maintain a steady
cashflow, while David’s companies have a steady income and few costs.
The couple have an equal say in each other’s companies as
they attend quarterly board meetings as directors of the parent company.
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