The Range owner’s astonishing rise from street trader to billionaire Wilko saviour
He’s a self-made billionaire, but Chris Dawson – who recently re-opened the Plymouth and Exeter Wilko stores after launching a rescue deal for the beleagured chain – began his entrepreneurial life trading from the back of a lorry in Truro.
The Plymouth-born businessman can trace his success back to his early day, selling ice-cream, but now he buys and sells businesses as part of his empire of stores.
By 2017 the Sunday Times Rich had list valued Mr Dawson and his wife Sarah’s fortune at £1.9bn, putting them joint 67th in the rankings. They soon broke through the double billionaire barrier and by 2023 had a fortune of £2.025bn[1]. It’s a far cry from Mr Dawson’s humble beginnings selling ice cream – but testament to his drive and sharp business acumen.
Mr Dawson, now nicknamed ‘Delux Delbo’, said just over a quarter-of-a-century ago he was known locally as ‘Dicky Dirt Dawson’ when trading household goods and entertaining bargain-hunters from a large white lorry nearby.
He opened the first outlet in Plymouth in 1989, followed by nearly 40 around the country, and revealed that he used to auction just a few hundred yards from current The Range Store in Threemilestone saying it was “the best one-day’s trading I used to have anywhere in the country”.
Chris Dawson, wearing Lord Mayor Mark Shayer’s tricorn hat, alongside Lady Mayoress Samantha Shayer at the re-opening of the Plymouth Wilko (Image: Stephen Mallinson)
The Range has three outlets in Devon, in Paignton, Exmouth, Torquay, Exeter and three in Plymouth, including its Derriford headquarters, Plymstock[4] and Peverell. There are also three in Cornwall, in Penzance[5], Truro[6] and St Austell[7].
Here is an overview of his journey to becoming a billionaire.
Ice cream and jumble sales
It’s been a startling success for the self-made man who started out in business as a boy of seven selling ice cream outside the King’s Arms, in Oreston.
When he was in junior school he was also quick to spot an opportunity to trade with his fellow pupils – selling items given to him from jumbles sales.
“I went to Hooe church jumble sale, but I didn’t have any money so I asked them if I could have what’s left,” he told the BBC[8] in 2014.
“They let me have all the stuff and I went and cleaned the plimsolls and painted them and sold them outside the school gates. I was flogging them merrily, until I got caught and got caned.
Chris Dawson giving it some Del-boy as he retreads his market trader days (Image: Penny Cross / Plymouth Live)
“Where the average person would think it was a risk, I saw it as an opportunity. But when I got home my mum marched me down the jumble sale and made me give every penny back.
“She said you should not be taking money off the church. But my brain knew even then that I had to have a low cost base. And I needed to change the offer – I had to make the plimsolls nice and shiny – and get in front of an audience where I stood out.”
Scrap metal trader
Mr Dawson spotted another untapped market in his school career – scrap metal.
He would collect discarded materials from school metal classes – and then sell them to a scrap dealer.
His teacher reportedly told him he would either end up in prison or very rich – fortunately for him it turned out to be the latter. After he left school at the age of 15, without any qualifications, he became a scrap metal dealer. He went on to spend his days street trading – from selling lotion on beaches to perfume and watches in pubs in clubs.
Chris Dawson with his Bentley Continental GT
Business began to boom, despite him admitting that he was virtually illiterate, later confirming that he struggled to read the satnav on his Rolls Royce..
“We were on roll, my friend Steve and I were taking very big money,” he said in his BBC interview.
The cash and carry boom
In the early 1980s he opened two cash-and-carry stores, in Exeter and Newton Abbot, which he sold at the end of the decade during the property boom and briefly returned to the market.
The shops lacked the feel of the market – and his vision for a chain of shops with a ‘tidied up’ marketplace inside was born.
CDS arrives
In 1989, Mr Dawson founded CDS (Superstores International) Ltd and opened up at Sugar Mill in Plymouth, trading under the brand The Range.
He was convinced he could do the discount store model better than rivals like the doomed Woolworths and the nearby Trago superstores.
Sugar Mill boomed, and it soon led to more stores. Today his other businesses include property, shop-fitting, manufacturing and a design operation.
Chris pictured in 2003 when CDS was rebranded as The Range (Image: Guy Channing)
In 2009, Mr Dawson purchased stock worth £98m from MFI and bankrupt electrical retailer Empire Direct. He also bought assets and stock from the collapse of Focus DIY and TJ Hughes and took over some of the vacant stores.
The MFI stock was worth £68m but Mr Dawson bought it from administrators for less than £3m.
The Range dominates discount
The store’s success all started with that one outlet in Billacombe Road, in 1989.
Twenty four years later, Mr Dawson bought the huge Sugar Mill Retail Park, including his first shop, out of administration for a knock-down price.
By then, his chain, renamed The Range after initially being known as CDS, was a huge national player, and Mr Dawson was one of Britain’s richest men.
The Range now has well over 150 stores across the UK and Ireland – the largest being in Kidderminster with an impressive 110,252sq ft. However, each branch is part of an operation which sells more than 65,000 goods across 16 departments, including DIY, furniture and arts and crafts.
Chris Dawson, founder of The Range
The Range also prides itself on being able to retail anything from quirky light bulbs to chandeliers.
It stocks household-name brands such as Dulux and Kilner, and also has its own brands, such as the garden electrical brand RYNO.
The super HQ
In 2017 Mr Dawson put forward proposals for a huge new Range in Plymouth which would serve as the retail giant’s ‘flagship store’. City planning chiefs waved it through and agreed it would bring big benefits to Plymouth, praising Mr Dawson for having faith in the city’s economic future.
The council hoped the new HQ would fuel further regeneration around Derriford and created around 500 jobs, 400 head office-based staff and 100 for the superstore, which would also boast a cafe. In addition it was set to have a 348-space car park and room for 104 bicycles.
The Range takes on Wilko stores
In August PlymouthLive revealed that Chris Dawson was one of a handful of bidders for crisis-hit Wilko[9] which had collapsed leaving more than 400 stores faced with closure and 12,500 workers fearing for their jobs. The Range was just one of a number of firms, such as Pounland, Home Bargains and B&M who were also said to have their eyes on the remains of the historic brand
Chris Dawson has seen his empire grow from strength to strength
By September[10], it was revealed that The Range was aiming to save the Wilko brand, while other firms would take on some of the stores, rebranded in their own name. Administrators at Price Waterhouse Coopers were forced to sell off Wilko’s assets after failing to secure a rescue deal for the whole business.
PwC also struck a deal for fellow discount chain B&M to buy 51 other Wilko stores, while The Range agreed a deal to buy Wilko’s brand for around £5m.
Following the re-launch of wilko.com[11] and the announcement that Wilko products would be sold in The Range’s 200 stores, parent company CDS Superstores International which owns both The Range and Wilko brands said it would reintroduce Wilko stores across the UK starting pre-Christmas with a roll-out continuing throughout 2024. And, for the first time in the brand’s history, Wilko stores are planned for Northern Ireland.
The first two Wilko stores were – unsurprisingly – Plymouth and Exeter and in early November The Range confirmed that the Plymouth store in the Armada Centre would be the first in the country to re-open.[12]
Chris Dawson, re-opening the Plymouth Wilko store alongside Lord Mayor Mark Shayer (Image: Stephen Mallinson)
Just a few days later, The Range said it was in a “strong position” despite making a £11.7m loss, after seeing a huge drop in sales.[13] However, just a couple of days after that news, Mr Dawson gave his wife a generous present of £141m[14] – although the cash would be used to pay for a huge new distribution centre for The Range.
The dividend payment, revealed in annual accounts, is nonetheless considered contentious because it may have saved the company millions of pounds in tax. Sarah Dawson is the controlling party and sole shareholder, in Norton Group Holdings Ltd, the investment holding company at the top of the retail empire. Documents filed at Companies House reveal £141,306,000 was paid to Mrs Dawson in the year to the end of January 2023.
However, the company stressed the dividend reflected the reimbursement of the directors loan account and supported other companies in Mr Dawson’s empire to buy the freehold of stores and buy and build a new £200m Distribution Centre in Stowmarket. Mr Dawson later revealed to PlymouthLive: “Stowmarket is part of the freeport, we are the biggest employer there by a country mile. It is next to Felixstowe, about 1,000 containers will be coming in a week. It will employ 1,500 people when it is up and running.”
By late November, PlymouthLive was granted exclusive access to Plymouth’s Wilko as staff worked around the clock to get it up and running ready for its grand re-opening on December 1. Ever the hands-on boss, Mr Dawson visited the store to look at his investment, telling PlymouthLive’s agenda editor William Telford:[15] “I’m home. There was a market near here and I also used to street-trade opposite Dingles (now House of Fraser). So I’ve come full circle.”
Chris Dawson, wearing Lord Mayor Mark Shayer’s tricorn hat at the re-opening of the Plymouth Wilko (Image: Stephen Mallinson)
Touring the shop and speaking to staff – many of whom Mr Dawson addressed on first-name terms, he told PlymouthLive: “We knew how good this store was and it was apparent how much the brand was loved. And Plymouth city centre[16] has a future. I wouldn’t be here else.” Mr Dawson even suggested that he could reopen nearly 300 Wilko stores around the UK and that deals on reopening 50 stores were “with the lawyers” and he may not stop there.
He said he would be adding adding another four The Range outlets in November and December, opening a store in Walkden, Manchester, on November 24, and further stores in Leamington Spa, Cwmbran and Chelmsford as well as store in Oswestry on December 8.
Unlike many other billionaire business-owners, Mr Dawson has never been backwards in coming forwards and getting his feet on the shopfloor rather than just the boardroom. And so it was on December 1 he attended the re-opening of the Plymouth Wilko[17], chatting and joking with staff, cutting the ribbon at its front door, glad-handling the Lord and Lady Mayor, joshing for the cameras and welcoming the customers as they excitedly entered the Armada Centre store.
References
- ^ by 2023 had a fortune of £2.025bn (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ The Range billionaire gives Plymouth Wilko’s first customer a huge gift (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ Martin Lewis says 1.1m not getting £3,500 non means tested benefit (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ Plymstock (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ Penzance (www.cornwalllive.com)
- ^ Truro (www.cornwalllive.com)
- ^ St Austell (www.cornwalllive.com)
- ^ BBC (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ was one of a handful of bidders for crisis-hit Wilko (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ By September (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ wilko.com (go.skimresources.com)
- ^ confirmed that the Plymouth store in the Armada Centre would be the first in the country to re-open. (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ in a “strong position” despite making a £11.7m loss, after seeing a huge drop in sales. (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ Mr Dawson gave his wife a generous present of £141m (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ telling PlymouthLive’s agenda editor William Telford: (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ Plymouth city centre (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
- ^ attended the re-opening of the Plymouth Wilko (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)