Ben Francis: UK’s youngest billionaire

22:27Over the next few years, Ben transforms Gymshark. In 2018, he opens a brand new 42 ,000 square foot headquarters in Solihill near Birmingham. It's campus style. There are napping pods. There's a cinema, a Gymshark logo that can be seen from Google Earth. In every sense, the kind of tech campus of Silicon Valley. Also, it's a kind of like we've arrived and he spent seven million dollars to build a huge gym in those headquarters. He called it the lifting club. The gym's free to employ. They can bring their mates along. And I think he's tapping into what he set out to do, bringing a community together.

23:00And as the business grew, he made community events more fundamental to this brand, right? That's right. So he took this small group of staff and influencers from the UK to the US. They would post a location on social media like New York's Times Square or Dublin's Grafton Street and invite anybody to come meet them. Sort of like a pop up meet and greet. And he described it as less an expo and more hang out in the park with your mates. Yeah. And also, of course, this is a key moment in the business's trajectory because, you know, like any band, you've got to break America, right? If you're going to make it hit the big time.

23:30and these events grew. Soon they actually looked a lot more like the Expo where he first got his big break. Thousands of people visited these events. There were meet and greets, talks, food and of course clothing. It's interesting how eventification I think is. Is that a word? Yeah I mean so much of retail and I think just in general anything that is built completely virtually eventually they kind of want to have a real life presence but obviously a bricks and motor shop is quite expensive. But if you have a one or two day event with lots of people attending, creating social content, documenting your brand, that's marketing that you can't buy.

24:07Yeah. And also it's quite interesting because it reflects what I've noticed about the music industry. Whereas, you know, when I was sort of a young person, you'd buy your album, your CD or whatever, and you go home to your bedroom and listen to it with your mates. Now, you don't make money selling hard copies of stuff. You make money by doing live events. It's a communal activity rather than a bedroom activity. Exactly. And I think Ben really tapped into that. You know, people don't just go to the gym now because they want to lift weights in silence. They go to the gym for community and friendship.

24:38Yeah, I know. I do occasionally go to the gym. And you can see that some people are sitting in the machine that you want to use. And they're on their phone for about 10 minutes. And it's like, come on, pal. Are you going to use that? Or are you going to get off? I've put my muscle vest on just especially for this workout. Get out of my squat thing or whatever. Anyway, Ben, he's becoming the face, of course, of Jim Jai. His face is getting much better known. Oh, yeah. I mean, interestingly, he said he's actually really terrible at public speaking. He says he gets envious of people who are naturally brilliant at it.

25:07But his Gen Z customers are social media natives. You know, they're used to seeing their favourite content creators living and breathing online. So basically, he's now a business influencer. He blogs about every part of the business. His YouTube has over 200 videos with titles like How I Started the UK's Fastest Growing Company. Spend a day at Gymshark with me. Zero to 100 million in six years. It's so interesting because I think he's also really tapped into another aspect of online culture, especially for Gen Z men. This idea of hustle culture where, you know, you wake up early, you go to the gym, you grind away at work and you too can become rich like me.

25:44And, you know, he is a living embodiment that you can actually do that. And also he's a very interesting character because you would not describe him as a kind of naturally flamboyant, charismatic, eye-catching type of person. If you saw him at a bus stop, you would look flights past him, wouldn't you? Yeah, unless, of course, you were looking at his muscles, in which case you'd probably be quite impressed. He was wearing one of his sleeveless shirts. Anyway. Yeah, well, by growing that profile, Ben can use himself to market the brand. So in 2018, he makes the Forbes 30 under 30 list. And this is obviously a really prestigious brand that people are desperate to get onto because it brings exposure and opportunities.

26:20And investment sometimes. Exactly. It puts you in the same league as a bunch of other very important famous people. And in 2019, he debuts on The Sunday Times' Young Rich List at number nine with an estimated personal fortune of£73 million. And actually that story of his success becomes something that the tabloids, the media begin to notice as well. But that has its pitfalls. In 2020, the Mirror newspaper ran a video that had surfaced of Ben snorting cocaine with friends from 2016. He apologised publicly on Instagram, explaining that he was young. He got caught up in a moment, made a stupid mistake that I massively regret.

26:55Not that this dented his fortune at all. In fact, a big deal is about to send his fortune sky high. In 2020, an American private equity firm, General Atlantic, bought 21 % of Gymshark in a deal that valued the company at more than a billion pounds. or$1.3 billion. At this point, his co-founder, Lewis, sold his remaining stake for about$100 million and completely left the brand. That's you and me. That's me. We're out. Lewis, if you're listening to this, tell us what you did with the millions because we would like to imagine ourselves being in that position. I'd be gone. Anyway, but Ben, however, increased his stake slightly to 70%.

27:32The remaining 9 % was split between an expanded leadership team. And at that point, of course, Ben's 70 % was estimated to be worth$700 million. and I should just point out when a private equity person comes in like this what they do typically is like there's a really good idea here we know other people who can take that idea and we can give it scale that's what private equity does so I can take this I can put it together with that we can invest it we can grow the brand and they can throw money to get something bigger quicker so that's dream private equity deal for someone like General Atlantic Is it ever a double-edged sword for someone like Gymshark?

28:09100 % it can be a double-edged sword because some brands have come in and had a big either private equity or big commercial partner. And what they do is they turn up the knobs in terms of volume and sales. But they can at the same time sometimes get rid of the culture along with that. So take, for example, a craft beer maybe that gets bought by one of the big, massive international breweries. And then they churn it out and it loses some of that cultural mystique, if you like. Right. It loses that kind of sparkle and cachet that it had when it had a smaller customer base. Yeah. The thing is, they're keeping their identity.

28:41If they'd gone down the route of being bought by a massive commercial enterprise like Nike, like an Addas, perhaps that would have happened here. But they didn't. They wanted to keep the brand and keep it as an independent label, really. No. And that's an interesting decision. Well, it kind of worked out for Ben because in 2021, he also had some really good stuff going on in his life. He married his girlfriend, the one who gave him the harsh truth about his 360 feedback. Robin Gallon, his wife, is a Canadian fitness influencer with a biochemical and molecular biology degree. They'd met at a fitness expo in Toronto, naturally.

29:15And perhaps noting here that while Gymshark started out as a brand for big, muscly guys who like to lift weights, by this point, women now accounted for two thirds of its sales. That's a remarkable growth in, you know, now dominating. That's really interesting. I mean, I think it also tracks with the explosion of interest in weightlifting among women. Yeah. It became a really trendy thing for women to start saying, I don't like Pilates. I'm not a yoga bunny. What I'm going to do is I'm going to start lifting weights. Essentially, one of my kids actually, you know, goes to the gym and I thought that what they would do is the Stairmaster and this and the aerobics and whatever.

29:48No, she's into lifting. That's the thing you do now. Yeah, I'm into lifting. Are you? Can you lift me? actually my party trick used to be going up to not the biggest guy but you know second or third down and being like i can lift you really yeah and it will always work it's such a crowd pleaser yeah i bet okay we might have to do that emasculating for any of the men i managed to lift i'm big enough to be able to deal with that humiliation we'll let you know that'll be the next good bad billionaire social video one of my gym moves well when we finish this recording maybe you take a picture we'll put on the website perfect that's exactly what the bbc marketing team wants to see.

30:23Anyway, let's get back to our story. That year, 2021, he reclaimed the title of chief executive. Remember, he relinquished it, saying he wasn't the right person to lead at the time, but now he thinks he is. He reckoned he'd grown in maturity and experience. He felt prepared to lead the business again. At this point, Gymshark has over 500 people, but it still didn't have a single physical retail store and you don't need one. Yeah, I mean, it's so different from the other clothing retailers we've covered on this podcast, you know, Gap, Benetton, Prada, these all have multiple stores all around the world.

30:56And in fact, in retail, I've been covering retail a long time as business editor. And back in the old day, it used to be called a race for space, that basically, to increase sales, you added retail space in terms of physical bricks and mortar stores. And obviously, that's completely changed. No, but in 2022, Jim Shutt actually opened its first bricks and mortar store on Regent Street in London. Now, I kind of find this interesting because I think it's more like a calling card, say we've arrived, rather than a need to sell things to the shop. It's basically a kind of billboard on the street and just it's brand awareness.

31:28I don't think, you know, it would be a tiny fraction of the stuff they actually sell will ever cross the threshold of that physical store. Well, soon other physical stores opened in other cities, including New York and Dubai. So it's really about reflecting the international growth of that brand, like basically saying to consumers in Dubai, hey, we're here. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, exactly. So the business is still growing. By 2023, Forbes estimates that Ben's 70 % stake in Gymshark is now worth$1.2 billion. So at 30 years old, Ben was one of only 15 billionaires in the world who were 30 years old or younger.

32:03And that's out of a total billionaire universe of 2 ,640 and counting, of course. And of those 15 billionaires under 30, only four were self-made and they didn't inherit the wealth. That's incredible. So he's one of four people under 30. In the world. And that year he was also awarded an MBE by Prince William for services to commerce and economy. Yeah. Yeah. We wonder why he pinned that on what he was wearing for that day. Anyway, let us take Ben Francis, Gymshark founder, beyond a billion.

32:47The Interview. The best conversations from across the BBC. Today we are spending trivians on war and peanuts on peace. With the people shaping our world. You're making decisions that will have long-term consequences for the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Wind power in the United States has been subsidised for 33 years. Solar for 25 years. That's enough! The Interview from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

33:23In the last couple of years, the rapid growth that Gymshark had enjoyed appears to be ever so slightly faltering. So in 2023, pre-tax profits halved from the year before, down to£13 million. And this is interesting because sales were actually up by 15%. And I'm not quite sure how this could have happened. Well, yeah, well, maybe this is increased marketing budget, a rollout of physical stores in Dubai and Regent Street. All of this stuff costs money. Now, it may well turn out that it's money well spent in terms of brand awareness in the long run. But rapid expansion sometimes comes at the cost of profits.

33:59And in fact, if you look at really fast growing companies, many of them that we spoke about on this programme won't make profits for ages because they're putting all this money back into the company. So if you get to a pivoting point, we're saying, OK, we're going to double down for that period where you're investing in the business that can hit the bottom line for profits. And it wasn't the only thing that was kind of raising eyebrows at Gymshark because there was quite a high profile legal case. Yes. Gymshark made the headlines when an influencer called Alex Earle, 8 million TikTok followers, 5 million Instagram followers.

34:29Those are the relevant stats these days, was suing Gymshark. She alleged that in 2023, Gymshark prematurely ended their partnership over public backlash to her perceived stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. After she posted on Instagram, now and always, we stand with the people of Israel. Alex claimed the deal was worth$1 million, for which she would do three TikTok posts and four Instagram posts, plus a photo shoot and an event appearance. And I find this disclosure... What? Can you get a million bucks for that? I know. I find this level of disclosure fascinating because I always look at these influences and what they post, sponsored ads, sponsored posts, and think how much money can you make from that?

35:07And now you know. Yeah. And that's someone who up to now I'd never heard of. Imagine what Kim Kardashian and one of the Jenna kids are getting. Millions. Well, Gymshark apparently denied ever having signed a contract with her, but they set up the case out of court in 2024 for an undisclosed amount of money. OK, so we're nearly up to date. So the question is, what is the future of Gymshark? Ben has denied speculation about a possible IPO. That's a sale of shares to the public that we've talked about a lot on this programme. Or that he would sell the brand to a larger competitor. He told the Financial Times, Gymshark has the potential to be to the UK.

35:41This is interesting. What Nike is to the US and Adidas is to Germany. So that is big, bold ambitions. Remember, these are giants of the sportswear world. Yeah, that is a huge vision. And in fact, interestingly, I know someone who runs a very small, well, relatively small sportswear brand. And his dream is to sell up to Nike or Adidas. And at which point he cash out. It's quite a well-worn path, that. Basically, you become an annoying enough bit of market share. You become an irritant to one of the big... A thorn in the side. A thorn in the side of one of the big brands, and they come and buy you, and that's your exit strategy.

36:14That's often it. And that's why a lot of these people will do what we would do and just take the first amount of money and go. And other people say, no, we can press on and actually be a very big presence. Now, we don't know whether that's going to succeed or not. We're still in the middle of the story, really. Well, at the time of recording, Ben is worth$1.4 billion, according to Forbes. And he still has that big personal profile. So he's got just over 650 ,000 followers on Instagram, almost 300 ,000 followers on TikTok and almost 300 ,000 followers on YouTube. And he's also become a dad to three boys, twins in 2022 and a third one in 2024.

36:48So he's got a lot going on in his life. Can I actually sort of say I'm mildly surprised? for big influencers, those numbers seem to me quite low. I don't know, but I've got nothing to judge against, apart from, you know, looking at kind of Kardashians and tens of millions. I mean, I guess if you look at people like the Kardashians, that is peanuts, that's small change. But if you look at, you know, the CEOs of other companies, I mean, how many of those people even bother to post on social media? And actually, of course, he's got his customers posting for him as well. He's not the only brand ambassador.

37:20It's everyone in the community, which that's the power of it, I suppose. It's interesting because you could almost describe it as a cult of personality. He's just very plain spoken, very to the point. And, you know, he's not flashy. He's not an Adam Neumann type of rework, charismatic evangelist. We're going to go to Mars and all this kind of stuff. Exactly. But, you know, he clearly taps into something that people like to follow. Yeah. Well, listen, it's working for him. So that is the Ben Francis story to date. I've got a feeling that there's plenty more to go in that one. And this is the part of the pod where, for a bit of fun, Zing and I will score our billionaire in a range of categories like wealth and power and influence and legacy and philanthropy.

37:58So we're going to start with wealth. Now, entry level, as far as our billionaire status is concerned, with$1.4 billion. And what about sort of Hollywood mansions and boats? What's his biggest expense? He said during lockdown that Nando's, that grilled chicken restaurant, was probably his biggest monthly expense and that he was saving a frightening amount of money when he couldn't go. I think that when you get to a billion plus, there's no limits to the number of Nando dinners you can have. Anything else you want to say about that? Well, he's travelled a really far distance from his roots, right?

38:31So he was a pizza delivery boy, first in the family to go to university. You know, as we've said, one of only four self-made young billionaires when he became one. So I think, you know, he scores quite highly for me on wealth because of that kind of journey he's been on. I think what this demonstrates, perhaps more than any of the others we've done, is that anyone can make it, if you have a good idea, with access to modern marketing tools. I'm going to give him much more than I usually would. I'm going to give him a five. I would go higher and give him a six. I think you can almost sort of see the Stephen Daldry biopic of this.

39:05Yeah, for sure. Working class boy from Birmingham, staying up late, hunched over his granny's sewing machine. There's something quite appealing about that kind of humble origins. and the journey he's been on. So I'm going to give him a six out of ten. Six for you, five for me. Controversy, his co-founder departed. There was a bit of unspoken skeletons in the closet, according to him. He had the cocaine scandal. All that didn't seem to affect him too badly. And there was that lawsuit for a million dollars. In the types of scandal we're used to talking about, this is pretty small beer, I think. I mean, it's chump change, really.

39:41Yeah. So I'm going to give him a one for controversy. Yeah, I think a one out of 10. Although if his co-founder would like to let us know about this. Well, the skeletons of the Cossack, we're prepared to upgrade that mark. So philanthropy, what's he given back? Well, his philanthropy seems to be mainly focused on this one charity, which is the Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital Charity. There's a personal connection here. His mother worked as a nurse at one of the hospitals. And in 2021, he became their first patron. Yeah, during the pandemic, Jim Shark ran a fundraising campaign called NHS Sweaty Selfie.

40:12For every sweaty selfie submitted by people working out, Gymshark would donate£5 to that Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital charity, reportedly raising£180 ,000. That's a nice idea. I like it. £180 ,000 out of a billion, not very much? Not very much at all. I saw a recent TikTok video where he said that all his wealth is just on paper. Yeah. But, you know, I think he could still do better. I did see that as well. And I honestly did get the feeling that he doesn't believe he's that rich. that rang true to me. That's interesting, because I think you're so right. He doesn't speak with the kind of, it's not quite confidence or self-belief, but he doesn't speak like someone who knows he's got a billion dollars waiting for him if he ever wants to pull out.

40:52No, still very, very genuine like that. You know, he also pays his way in the UK. He was the youngest among the UK's biggest taxpayers. He said this, this country and its taxes afforded me a free education, free health care, and as a child of a nurse, it also paid my mum's salary. I'm nothing but proud that we contribute to the country in every way that we can. I wonder when Nike and Adidas do buy him out and he's got$10 or$20 or$30 billion, whether that will come back to haunt him. If they buy him out. Yeah. So a philanthropy, 180 grand that we know of out of over a billion pounds, $1.4 billion is not an enormous amount, but he's only recently very rich.

41:32He's only a recent entry onto the list. Yeah. And also, you know, he's got a personal connection with that charity, which I think always kind of scores someone higher in my eyes. It feels very genuine, that philanthropy, doesn't it? So he got plenty of time to give away more money. So I'm going to give him a five for his efforts so far. Yeah, four out of ten for recent efforts. OK, power and legacy. Not the kind of person who can ring up the White House, which is often the test that we use. No, although he was a member of then Prime Minister Theresa May's Small Business Scale-Ups and Entrepreneurs' Business Council in 2019.

42:04So, you know, he's slowly making his way politically. Yeah, Gymshark's most recent reported revenue is just under$800 million in a year. That's a fraction of what people like Nike are making, which is revenues over$50 billion. So he's very successful. He's got a very visible brand, but he is still small fry compared to the giants. He said that his goal for Gymshark is to be a brand that lasts for at least 100 years because he's inspired by these huge historic British brands like Land Rover and Cadbury's, where his grandma had a job. He's such an interesting combination of old-fashioned homespun pride in doing a good job.

42:42And he's built it in the modern way where basically the sky's the limit. And, you know, we're talking about people becoming trillionaires. He's a really interesting throwback in some ways who's got rich with very modern tools. He's maybe not so much a throwback, but a bridge, right? A bridge between the past, you know, all that homespun traditional value stuff and the future. He's too young to really talk about his legacy. but what I would say is that when people like me were growing up and we looked at successful business people, it was people like Richard Branson. I bet for many people, he's the kind of Richard Branson figure for, you know, millennials or Gen Zs or whatever.

43:18And if you're a TV producer, maybe think about giving him his own show. I bet it would be interesting. Yeah. Parent Legacy, I'm going to give him a four. I think four out of ten is right. But, you know, there's always room for revision. Who knows where he'll be in ten years' time? How old is he now? He's 33. He's getting on a bit. 33. Oh, God, don't say that. The billionaires on this show get younger and we stay the same age. I know, I know. Not the same in my day. So, question is, is he good, bad or just a billionaire? What do you think? Email goodbadbillionaire at bbc.com or drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001 917 686 1176 and tell us what you think.

43:56And don't forget to include your name as we may read out your message on a future episode. And we've had some listener feedback. So Hamish from Fife in Scotland has got in touch to say, great programme. We love it. We snore happily through the night. I'm not sure that's a good thing, Hamish. Listening to it on sounds, but have to repeat it much better as we missed bits. Alongside History Hour with Max Pearson, it's our favourite programme and joins in our time as three of the best. Well, you can't wish for a better line up than that. Thank you, Hamish. We've had an email from Steve who got in touch after listening to our Guy La Liberté episode.

44:29Steve writes, I first saw Cirque du Soleil in 1995. and a special production for the G7 Plus One, that's Boris Yeltsin's Russia, in Halifax, Canada. To that point, I'd never heard of Cirque du Soleil. I'd just returned from the UK, where I was from originally, where I headed the European business of a large US international company. Steve continues, in my new role in Canada, my company provided all the print material to the G7 and as such, I was invited to the G7 festivities. In attendance of this show, I like this because it's a real role call. Boris Yeltsin, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Major, Jean Chrétien and the respective French, German, Italian and Japanese leaders who were all on the front row close to the circus ring.

45:09At one point in the show, a young girl acrobat came tumbling forward, landing on the circus ring in front of Boris with her hands up in the air. Boris got up and lumbered forward with his arms outstretched. The audience was stunned into silence. He came within inches of her face and then clapped vigorously. The audience clapped along in relief. Quite the image of Boris Yeltsin doing that to a Cirque du Soleil acrobat. Yeah, Steve says, I love the show and have subsequently seen 15 performances. All of the Las Vegas events, Orlando, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City. The Quebec City performance was outdoors in the dock area, utilising the dock cranes.

45:43It was amazing. Well, thank you, Steve. Thanks for getting in touch. Sounds amazing. And I'll forever remember the image of Boris Yotsin clapping along to Cirque du Soleil. So thank you for that. So who do we have next episode? Well, if you've ever eaten a plate of orange chicken, you have this particular billionaire to thank. I have not. What are you talking about? Well, it's a delicious kind of sweet and sour stir-fry chicken dish that you will get at a restaurant chain called Panda Express, which has dominated American fast food for decades. And founded by our billionaire Peggy Chun and her husband Andrew.

46:19They really introduced American palates to Chinese food for the first time. And there's a few pandas thrown in, like real live ones. Exactly. Well, they're currently worth$7.4 billion. and you can find out how Peggy made that money on the next episode of Good Bad Billionaire. Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast produced by Hannah Hufford. The researcher is Maria Noyon. The editor is Paul Smith and it's a BBC Studios production. For the BBC World Service, the senior commissioning producer is Sarah Green and the commissioning editor is John Manel.

46:55The Interview. The best conversations from across the BBC. Today we are spending trillions on war and peanuts on peace. With the people shaping our world. You're making decisions that will have long-term consequences for the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Wind power in the United States has been subsidised for 33 years. Solar for 25 years. That's enough. The interview from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.