Rich-lister Maxine Horne’s holdings surge $6.5m after Vita Group reports strong results

A Queensland rich-lister has just seen her stake in a company she co-founded 25 years ago surge by a whopping $6.5 million.

QUEENSLAND rich-lister Maxine Horne saw her stake in the phones-to-facials company she co-founded 25 year ago surge $6.5 million yesterday after it reported record revenue and increased profit.

Vita Group shares climbed 17.2 per cent to $1.50 yesterday, lifting the value of Ms Horne’s holdings in the company to $44.2 million after it reported financial results for the six months to the end of December.

She will also pocket $2.5 million from the interim dividend of 8.7¢ a share.

Vita said its interim revenue climbed 14 per cent to $431.6 million as it expanded sales at its Telstra phone shops and opened more of its Artisan beauty therapy clinics. Net profit increased 3 percent to $14.5 million in the period.

The company also announced it had extended its master licence agreement to run Telstra branded shops for the next five years.

Vita Group founder Maxine Horne in the A (AAP Image/Richard Waugh)

Ms Horne said the company’s strong performance was driven by increased revenue from its communication accessory retail operations and the opening of more beauty therapy clinics.

Ms Horne said the company was on track to build a network of Artisan branded clinics nationally. The company ultimately aims to have up to 90 outlets, many located in wealthy suburbs such as Mosman in Sydney or Hamilton in Brisbane.

The billion dollar non-surgical beauty treatment industry is being driven by an increasingly affluent ageing generation and social media.

“We will continue to build profitable scale, adding clinics and talent to the network to strengthen the Artisan brand in the skin-health and wellness category,” she said.

Ms Horne said the extended agreement with Telstra reflected the confidence Telstra continued to place in the company’s ability to outperform. Vita’s relationship with Telstra was hit in 2017 when the phone giant said it would slash payments to Vita, which at the time ran 105 licensed Telstra stores and 23 Telstra business centres.

Vita has agreed to forego about $13 million in legacy remuneration from July 2019 in exchange for the extension of the master licence agreement, an annual performance-based mechanism and increase in the number of Vita-owned stores in the Telstra network.