Named after one of the smallest birds in the UK, Wren Kitchens has grown into one of the country's business heavyweights. It was founded by Hull-born Malcolm Healey in 2009 – his third venture in the kitchen retail trade, after Humber Kitchens (sold to MFI in 1987 for around £200m) and the US-based Mill's Pride (offloaded for roughly £800m in the late 1990s).

Healey has kept Wren firmly under his ownership since launch, and for good reason. In a property-obsessed UK, the designer, manufacturer and retailer of fitted kitchens has grown to over 100 showrooms and around 7,500 employees. In its end-of-year results for 2025, Wren reported its second-highest sales figures ever, at just over £1bn – an increase of roughly £87m over 2024 – with the growth credited in part to its recent expansion into bedroom retail.

Challenges are never far away for big retail. Material, labour and energy costs have all risen sharply over the past year. The business also put its US arm into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in April 2026 and closed all showrooms there, six years after first opening across the pond.

Healey himself, though, is still one of the wealthiest people in the country, with the Sunday Times Rich List placing the family's fortune at around £1.5bn in its most recent estimate – built from a manufacturing career that has spanned more than four decades and two continents.