NESS, the Scottish designer and retailer of womenswear and handbags, has attracted £2.5 million of development capital as it seeks to more than treble annual turnover to in excess of £15 million within five years.
The Edinburgh-based business, set up by husband and wife Adrienne and Gordon MacAulay in 1997 with its first shop on the Royal Mile, is planning a programme of store openings and ramping up its online retailing operation.
Mrs MacAulay said the new stores would generate "a lot of further employment" at Ness, which already has a workforce of nearly 100 people.
Ness has secured the development capital from the YFM Equity Partners-run British Smaller Companies VCTs (venture capital trusts).
A spokeswoman for YFM Equity Partners said that, in the wake of the investment, the VCTs and the MacAulays would have equal stakes in Ness. Mrs MacAulay noted that the trusts and Ness's founders would, between them, own the majority of the business.
Ness, which offers a range of bags and purses, coats, jackets and blazers that all feature unique designs created by its in-house team, is planning four store openings over the summer and autumn.
Mrs MacAulay noted that Ness was focusing on locations south of the Border for these new stores, highlighting Ness's already significant presence in Scotland.
Ness has 10 permanent stores,as well as a "pop-up" outlet at Braehead shopping centre near Glasgow. The permanent stores comprise three in Edinburgh, including the original outlet on the Royal Mile, two in Glasgow, in the Buchanan Galleries and St Enoch shopping centres, and shops in Dundee, Inverness, York, Bath and Cambridge.
Mrs MacAulay noted that Ness, in terms of manufacturing, sourced its products from various locations around the world.
She said that the company tried to source manufacturing from within the UK where possible, for example in terms of tweed or small runs of knitwear.
However, she added that, when it came to cashmere, Outer Mongolia was the best place from which to source products.
Mrs MacAulay said: "We send our manufacturing to wherever in the world the best manufacture, and the quality, is."
Dean Murray, a retail industry veteran who is a non-executive director of French Connection, is joining Ness as chairman as part of the investment deal.
YFM said that Glasgow-based Clydesdale Bank would continue to support Ness with £1m of banking facilities.
Noting that the £2.5m of development capital from the YFM-run VCTs was the first such investment in Ness, Mrs MacAulay said the funding would take Ness "to that next level we need to be at".
She highlighted Ness's desire to work with an investor with experience of the retail sector. In this context, Mrs MacAulay noted that YFM had been involved with the GO Outdoors business and with kitchen manufacturer and retailer Harvey Jones.
Kenny Baillie, managing director at Ness, said the company had made turnover of £5m in its last financial year to January 2015 and recorded a profit.
He added that, in the current financial year, turnover was expected to exceed £6m.
Mr Baillie highlighted plans to raise annual turnover to more than £15m by the year to January 2020, emphasising Ness's belief that this was a conservative estimate.
Mrs MacAulay highlighted plans by Ness to recruit heads of retail and technology operations, citing these as key hires.
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