15= (15) Will Adderley and family £450m (£380m)

The decision by Will Adderley and his parents Bill and Jean to float their successful Dunelm Mill for £400 million has proved to be a shrewd and profitable one.

Since flotation in October 2006, the Leicestershire-based company has gone from strength to strength, posting sales and profits records and enjoying a big demand for its soft furnishing products.

Sales for the year to June 2007 surged by 12.5 per cent to £354.7 million, while underlying pre-tax profits rose eight per cent to £41 million.

High interest rates and an uncertain trading environment may have dented profits slightly, but noticeably.

Not bad for an enterprise that began life as a curtain stall run by Bill and Jean Adderley in a Leicester market. That was nearly 30 years ago. Now it employs around 5,000 people at its 80-odd stores, and is growing by the month.

Bill and Jean Adderley opened their first Dunelm store in Churchgate, Leicester in 1984. Their first superstore opened in Rotherham in 1991. Now Dunelm - headquartered in Syston - has opened new superstores in Aberdeen in the north and Shoreham in the south, with nine new stores being opened in all - an investment of some £20 million.

The company also has a manufacturing plant near Leicester city centre, turning out high quality bespoke products to order.

Ambitious chief executive Will Adderley puts the family firm’s success down to Dunelm puts its success down to high footfalls at its out-of-town locations, the commissioning of a new central warehouse in Stoke, and the implementation of major new IT systems.

Thirty-six year-old Will Adderley has taken over day-to-day control of the business and holds 12.5 per cent.

His mother, Jean, netted £102 million from the sale of her 30 per cent stake in the company, retaining 7.5 per cent.

Will’s father Bill, who is a non-executive director, retains his 50 per cent stake. Just before flotation the family paid themselves a £50 million dividend funded by a Lloyds TSB bank loan.

It’s not just a share in a successful business for which Will has cause to thank his parents. He received a kidney from his mother in 2003.

With high growth rates, strengthening gross margins, an ability to see off threats from competitors and slack trading, and with more new stores in the pipeline, Dunelm looks set for another successful year.