Rich List 2012: No.16 - The Mackie Family (£455m)
Profits at the Mackie family’s City Electrical Factors Holdings have recovered of late. Results for 2009 showed an increase from £3.6 million to £25 million.
Thomas Mackie, an ex-GEC employee and former Royal Air Force radio operator, founded City Electrical Factors in Coventry in 1951 with just one outlet. He began by selling electric cables and light fittings to local contractors.
Now City Electrical Factors employs around 8,000 people worldwide, has more than 400 UK branches and another 400 overseas outlets.
In the 1960s CEF moved into Kenilworth to set up a head office on the site of a former cinema. In the early 1970s, the company began exporting.
From there the empire was cultivated and grown by Thomas Mackie, his son Gerald and grandsons Ashley and Adam to the size it is today, with Australasia as its latest target market.
