Sara Blakely, the founder and CEO of Spanx, celebrated her company’s recent $1.2 billion valuation by surprising her employees with first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 in spending money. (Watch above)
500 employees received the perks, according to CBS News.
A day after reaching a deal to sell the underwear maker to a private equity firm, she gave each of her 500 workers first-class plane tickets and $10,000 in spending money.
— WJZ | CBS Baltimore (@wjz) October 27, 2021
In a video posted to Blakely’s Instagram account, she tells her employees, “I’m spinning a globe because, to celebrate this moment, I have bought each one of you two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world.”
She added, “You know, if you go on a trip, you might want to go out to a really nice dinner. You might want to go out to a really nice hotel. So, with everybody’s two first class tickets to anywhere in the world, you are each getting $10,000.”
“When employees were asked how they’d use their gifts, their answers ran the gamut: from a honeymoon in Bora Bora and an elopement in Sweden to a South African safari,” according to NPR.
Business Insider reports:
Blakely started the company in 2000 with $5,000 she made selling fax machines door-to-door. On Wednesday, Spanx announced that the private-equity firm Blackstone would buy a majority stake in the company, a deal valuing it at $1.2 billion.
“I wrote a goal down, and I said this company will one day be worth $20 million, and everybody laughed at me,” Blakely says in the video.
Spanx, which started out by selling stretchy, body-smoothing undergarments, has grown into a gigantic brand with a wide product line and men’s offerings over the past 21 years. Kim Kardashian West launched a rival shapewear company called Skims in 2019.
“In a moment like this, I think of my mom and my grandmothers and their lack of options and all the women that came before them,” Blakely said. “This would have only been a very remote dream.”
Spanx founder Sara Blakely surprised each of her employees with $10,000 and two free first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world to thank them after the women’s apparel company recently inked a $1.2B deal with Blackstone. Watch the amazing moment: pic.twitter.com/ltDPrwfRu4
— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) October 27, 2021
Last week, Blakely revealed she “will remain a significant shareholder and continue to help the business fulfill its greatest potential.”