Offshore companies that holed HMV below the waterline | Business | The Guardian: "Play.com, the UK market leader in online DVD sales, was founded by Jersey residents Richard Goulding, Simon Perrée and Peter de Bourcier in 1998 when all three were 28. It began life as a sideline, run out of the stockroom above a branch of sportswear chain Athlete's Foot, for which Goulding and Perrée operated a Jersey franchise.
The scale of the business is kept secret as its parent, Zuma Investments, is incorporated in Jersey and not required to publish financial statements. The company has refused to comment on trading for more than two years, but is known to be one of Europe's most successful online retailers.
Past disclosures in a Jersey court case, however, revealed that by 2004 Play was shipping 15.2m items a year, generating turnover of £190m. For 2005 the business was budgeting for 25m shipments and a turnover of close to £250m. In interview with the Guardian in 2009, Play's managing director, Stuart Rowe, predicted that year's turnover would be £400m. Asked what proportion of Play's sales were VAT-free, he was not forthcoming. 'It's really a little bit of a red herring … Off the top of my head I don't know. We are not really concerned because [the VAT relief] has less of an effect on the company than it did in times gone by.'"
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