MY MONEY
Portrait: Robin Mellor, Catherine Palmer
THE INVESTOR
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own, and in John Smedley there are some 400
employees, many of whose families have been
in the factory for several generations.
‘For the rst 18 months I was like a rabbit
caught in the headlights. I remember waxing
lyrical early on to our auditor about the
history of the company and our culture and
I stopped, and he looked at me, and he said
“Ah yes, but you only run out of money
once!” It was a salutary lesson.’
Charles set out to get a grip on the
company’s nances and procedures and to
try to establish a sustainable base that would
enable it to give work to future generations.
Perhaps re ecting
Charles’s own success
as a designer for a
number of prestigious
clients (see box),
he felt strongly that
John Smedley should
become an aspirational
brand, focusing on
the underlying quality
of range, design and
production. He still
believes the name has a huge potential that
could be tapped, in a similar way to brands
like Burberry and Mulberry.
It was not an easy start; a number of
redundancies had to be made in the rst
year and there were other tough decisions to
make.‘The company needed a shake-up and
this is what came out of it,’ Charles re ects.
John Smedley has now enjoyed two years
of sales growth, with sales increasing by
10% to £17 million over the period and web
sales doing particularly well. Cash ow has
also improved. Charles has undoubtedly
brought both a healthy contacts book
and good networking skills to his role as
chairman. However, he says, the board’s skills
complement each other.‘Ian, my cousin, has
a very good nancial head and we have an
excellent nance director.’
He himself admits he was something of a
novice when it came to dealing with auditors’
reports and packs of accounts. In his personal
life, he adds:‘I don’t like to spend too long
on the money side.’ Fortunately, for the
It’s been a very steep
learning curve. For the
first 18 months I was
like a rabbit caught in
the headlights
past 25 years, his St. James’s Place Partner,
Peter Gavin, has looked after him; primarily
organising and managing Charles’s investments
to best address his pension requirements and
school fee obligations – and freeing Charles to
focus on his creative work as a designer.
At John Smedley, however, he sees himself
as a kind of ambassador for the business.
Winning a RoyalWarrant to the Queen in
2013 was a milestone, but his de ning moment
came last autumn when he visited Tokyo to
celebrate 100 years of doing business with
Japan – 60% of production is exported, with
Japan the most important of the company’s
export markets.
Indeed, the former
Emperor of Japan was
a loyal customer and
used to buy the high-
quality underwear,
quite probably
including the wooled
leggings that came
to be known as‘long
johns’ for which the
company was famous.
‘I was hosting a reception in the centre of
Tokyo when I was told by embassy sta that
the cream of the Japanese fashion industry
was in the room,’ Charles recalls.‘I was
touched by how they valued John Smedley
and the quality; they really liked the fact that
it was a family business, and the history of the
relationship with Japan.’
Everything is still made in the UK in
three factories, two in Derbyshire and one
inYorkshire.The 230-year-old company
has stayed close to its roots as a textile
manufacturer and although it has only one
retail outlet, in London’sWest End, it has
concession shops and a comprehensive
website. De ning a typical customer is
tricky; royalty clearly love the garments,
but the range extends to a collection each
year for London Men’s FashionWeek.
James Bond, or Daniel Craig to be precise,
even wore a Bobby v-neck pullover in a
Shanghai bar in a scene from
Skyfall
. It’s quite
appropriate, really, for a company which has
been shaken, but not stirred.
