ABSTRACT

Sophie Mirman and Richard Ross were unsuccessful in selling 49 per cent of their start-up business for £40,000. They eventually raised a loan of £45,000 under the government’s Loan Guarantee Scheme, and with £2,000 of their own they opened their first shop, a kiosk in Knightsbridge tube station. Four years later, on 29 April 1987, Capel-Cure Myers offered for sale 20 per cent of the ordinary shares in their business, The Sock Shop International plc, at 125 pence each. This would turn their original £2,000 into £2.5 million in cash, whilst still leaving them with 80 per cent of their company. The business was worth £27.5 million at the issue price.