Big name retail has long been dominated by three household names - Philip Green's Arcadia Group, Mike Ashley's Fraser empire and Philip Day's portfolio of brands from Jaegar to Peacocks.
But the Covid-19 pandemic, big investment in bricks-and-mortar stores and a failure to keep up with the times has led to some turbulent months for the triumvirate. There have been store closures, job losses and some hope of resurrection out of administration.
There is no doubt the influence that these players still have, but those investors who have tapped into the huge audience for custom via mobile phone and social media or pile-it-high philosophy have come into play, particularly this year of lockdown and Covid-19 restrictions.
So while the brands that these tycoons stand for remain dominant in the imagination, when it comes top purchasing power, shoppers are increasingly looking for fast-turnaround alternatives that can deliver the good 24/7.
Here we look at the big-hitting names you might not have heard of who have fast become the new retail royalty behind the UK's most successful stores and shopping sites.
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Matthew Moulding, The Hut Group
Founded in 2004 by Matthew Moulding and John Gallemore with a £500,000 investment, the Hut Group specialises in online retail.
The firm was floated on the London Stock Exchange in September, resulting in a £830million payout for Moulding who is the Chief Executive of the business and is known to enjoy a lavish lifestyle after coming from a modest two up two down home in Lancashire.
But he shares the wealth too, giving £10million of his fortune to support Covid relief efforts during the coronavirus pandemic and donated £2million of PPE to frontline workers on top of that.
In 2019, staff shared a massive £21million share windfall between them.
Several workers became multi-millionaires as a result of the company's share buy back scheme, which is open to staff, says Moulding.
The Hut Group's beauty brands include Lookfantastic, one of the leading beauty retailers in Europe, Skinstore and subscription box service Glossybox, which has just under half a million monthly subscribers.
Under its nutrition arm, the group owns flagship brand MyProtein - and its family of sub-brands Myvegan, Myvitamins and MP Clothing - after it acquired the company in 2011.
THG Lifestyle includes consumer and luxury products, while THG Experience includes Hale Country Club in Cheshire, and King Street Townhouse Hotel and the Great John Street Hotel, both in Manchester.
The group also operates more than 200 online retail sites under its Ingenuity arm. Big name clients including Neal's Yard Remedies, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, PZ Cussons and Procter & Gamble.
The Manchester-based firm said in its January trading update that it expects revenues to soar by 35% this year after a strong peak trading performance.
Creating 3,000 jobs in 2020, mostly in the UK, revenue for the group, was £558.7m during that time, up from 2019's £370million.
The Barclay Brothers, The Very Group
Booming online brand Very.co.uk and sister site Littlewoods.com, is owned by the Barclay family, proprietors of The Daily Telegraph .
Sky News has reported that that the Barclay family is at the early stages of examining whether to float Very on the London Stock Exchange in a move that was being explored before Sir David Barclay's unexpected death in January 2021. With his twin brother, Sir Frederick, Sir David had built one of Britain's biggest private business empires.
Since 2018, Chief Executive Henry Birch has overseen the rise of the brand, returning it to profit last year as online retailers have seen sales soar during lockdown.
He is a former chief executive of FTSE 250-listed casino firm Rank Group plc, creating the UK’s largest multichannel gaming operator. Prior to joining Rank, Henry spent four years as CEO of William Hill Online, where he launched the company’s mobile business. He started his career working in the House of Commons and holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
The online retailer had a record-breaking Christmas as the coronavirus lockdowns saw people surge to internet shopping.
The Liverpool company said sales in the run-up to Christmas were 25.2% up year-on-year, following strong trading throughout 2020. Revenues topped £500m for the first time in the company's history.
As well as benefiting from the move to online shopping as many physical stores were closed, Very was boosted by other coronavirus trends, such as people investing in their homes during the pandemic.
The company's sales of DIY products tripled, while it saw big increases in the number of beds, other furniture and soft furnishings it sold. Other benefits from the pandemic came in sales of sportswear and wellbeing products.
Very, which was formed by the merger of the Littlewoods and Shop Direct companies in 2005, said overall group revenue, including financial services, rose 15.3% to surpass £500million.
Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora, B&M Stores
Bought in 2004 from Phildew Investments, the Arora brothers have grown bargain retailer B&M from 21 stores to more than 600 in the UK with a number of acquisitions along the way.
Admitted to the FTSE 250 index in June 2015, the firm has this year seen a sales surge thanks to be being considered an essential retailer able to open through lockdown with the majority of its lines classed in grocery, cleaning and household goods.
In January, the company announced that the Arora family, under its investments vehicle SSA Investments, has sold 40million ordinary shares in the B&M business for over £200million, taking its stake from 15% stake in B&M to 10.98%.
The trio grew up in Sale, Manchester, and inherited their drive from their father, who came to the UK in the late 1960s from India with £10 in his pocket.
The two elder brothers are especially close, living next door to each other.
When Robin Arora married in 2015, the couple chartered a private plane to fly guests to Ibiza.
B&M is set to reward 30,000 staff with an extra week's wages, with shareholders to receive a special dividend of £200million after revenues at its UK stores soared again in post-Christmas trading figures.
And all of this from bricks-and-mortar stores because they don't sell online.
The discount retail giant said UK stores' revenue growth for Q3 - the festive "golden quarter" - was 26.6%, while group revenue growth stood at 22.5%. That's compared with a 9.9% rise for the same period last year.
The group, whose headquarters are on Merseyside, opened 18 new stores during the quarter - helping to create over 500 new jobs.
In a trading update detailing a "strong golden quarter", the firm also said a further special dividend of 20p per share - equating to around £200m in total - will be paid to shareholders at the end of January.
Chief executive Simon Arora and his family are the biggest shareholders in the business, meaning he will pay himself £30 million, in addition to a £44 million dividend payout revealed two months ago.
Anders Povlsen, Asos.com
The Danish businessman is reportedly worth £4.5bn thanks to his Bestseller clothes retail empire, which is the majority shareholder in online retailer Asos.com.
The retail magnate and his wife Anne were hit by tragedy in 2019, with the loss of three of their four children - Alfred, five, Agnes, 12, and Alma, 15 - in the Sri Lankan bombings.
The couple last year welcomed twin girls into their family.
The publicity-shy couple have become the biggest landowners in the Scottish Highlands after first buying the 42,000-acre Glenfeshie estate in the Cairngorms for £8million in 2006.
Anders' love affair with the area started on a flyfishing trip as a boy.
The 48-year-old billionaire has continued to snap up huge swathes of the Scottish countryside - owning about 220,000 acres across 12 estates.
The couple, through their company Wildland, want to become pioneers of rewilding by reversing years of mismanagement by previous lairds.
Alongside online retailers, Asos.com has seen lockdown sales soar. In the year to September 2020, Asos posted revenue of £3.26 billion and pre-tax profit of £142.1 million, an increase of 300 per cent.
In January, it announced plans to invest £90 million into a new distribution hub in the West Midlands which will create up to 2,000 jobs.
Asos said today the centre would become operational within 12 months and would reach peak trade in 2023.
Mahmud Kamani, Boohoo.com
The story of the man at the head of the Kamani family retail empire is a rags to riches tale.
Starting with a Manchester market stall in Manchester, Mahmud's father Abdullah Kamani sold handbags to support his family after escaping war-torn Kenya in the 1960s.
Abdullah went on to found a wholesale textile business, Pinstripe, becoming a major supplier for high-street names including New Look and Primark.
Mahmud started working in the business and built on that strong work ethic to start Boohoo in 2006 with business partner and creative lead Carol Kane.
They saw the potential of the internet, cutting out the middle-man by selling well-priced fast-turnaround fashion direct to shoppers.
In less than 15 years, Boohoo has gone from a three-employee operation to scooping revenue over the 10 months up to the end of 2020 of £1.47bn.
Mahmud Kamani, 55, and his wife, Aisha, and sons Umar, Adam and Samir, have gone from a house in Chorlton, Manchester, to lavish lifestyles, with properties in New York and Dubai.
The brand has been dogged by a series series of reports raising concerns about conditions in Leicester, with garment workers being paid as little as £3 an hour.
An independent review concluded in September 2020, found that Boohoo management were aware workers in its supply chain were being badly treated.
The retailer has since appointed Sir Brian Leveson to oversee its Agenda for Change programme to ensure workers in its supply chain are treated ethically and lawfully.
The company, which was listed on the stock market in 2014, includes fashion group brands boohoo, boohooMAN, PrettyLittleThing Nasty Gal, MissPap, Karen Millen and Coast.
What do you think about the changing face of retail - what shops or retailers would you like to know more about - let us know in the comments section below
