👉 Background: Mecca was founded in Melbourne back in 1997, back when Savage Garden were dropping hit after hit. It now has over 110 retail stores in Australia and New Zealand with 7,000 staff. Although Mecca is private, it’s a large proprietary company so it still needs to lodge its financial results with ASIC (which are publicly accessible).

👉 What happened: Now, Mecca has just reported record revenue of $1.2 billion for 2023 up from $971 million in 2022. And its net profit also rose slightly to $27.8 million. The reason we're talking about 2023 financials is because Mecca submitted their financial reports to ASIC almost one year late.

👉 What else: But if that was Mecca's revenue figures from the 2023 year, you can only imagine how much they’ve grown since. But being a private company means Mecca can get away with a lot more than its public counterparts.

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What's the key learning?

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💡When a company is privately held, it doesn’t owe anything to anyone (except maybe the tax office) — no updates on earnings, no market guidance and certainly no shareholder calls. And, it’s even better when the only people calling the shots are the founders and owners.

💡This allows private companies without external investors to focus on whatever they feel is the highest priority for the business, including long-term strategic decisions (as opposed to focusing on short-term profit). And this can be a huge strategic advantage.

💡A recent report by PwC found that private companies in Europe achieved an internal rate of return nearly double that of the FTSE All Share pubic companies. And, comparing Mecca to Adore Beauty really highlights the difference too.