Missguided's Owners Pay Themselves £1 Million Dividend

The owners of the Missguided.co.uk website have paid themselves a £1 million dividend after profits increased fourfold.

Profit increased 423 per cent to £3.2 million in the year to March 2013, according to the company's accounts.

The documents said Missguided has launched sites in America, Australia and Europe and has plans to launch foreign language websites in Europe.

'Despite the uncertainties of the economic environment the company continues to grow and this puts it in a good position,' it said in the documents.

The site is owned through a complicated structure but it is believed to be ultimately held through a trust controlled by the family of Nitin Passi, the sole director at the firm.

The license for the Missguided name is Debbie Morgan Macao Commercial Offshore Limited which has been involved in several legal cases to control the name in countries outside the UK. We assume - but have not fully established - that the Debbie Morgan Macao is controlled, or licences the name on behalf of, family interests.

In a further complicating factor of the ownership structure, Missguided Limited, which filed the accounts, is controlled by a shell company called Nakai Investments Limited, which is based in the British Virgin Islands.

According to the accounts, sales at the business increased from £28.8 million in the year to March compared to £8.7 million a year earlier. However, the company appears to have a different measure of its sales and regularly quotes figures roughly twice that big.

It is not yet clear what the difference is between the figures in the accounts and the company's own quoted figures.

For more on Missguided, see our Online Retail Stars of 2013 Report: Missguided.co.uk.