London designer and architect Thomas Heatherwick has paid himself more than £10 million in dividends since his interpretation of the Olympic cauldron at the 2012 Games catapulted him to national fame.
The 48-year-old’s King’s Cross-based design and architecture practice Heatherwick Studio, in which he is the sole shareholder, handed out £2.55 million in dividends in the year to the end of March, according to latest accounts.
That followed a £3.47 million payout in 2017 and takes the cumulative total for a designer compared to Willie Wonka, the Pied Piper and the Wizard of Oz past £10 million since 2012.
The business has grown explosively since he was commissioned to design the cauldron — made of 204 copper petals, one for each competing nation — by film director Danny Boyle, who masterminded the opening ceremony.
Heatherwick has also won a number of other high-profile projects contracts including designing the new Routemaster bus and the Coal Drops Yard restaurant and shops development at King’s Cross, as well as the now scrapped Garden Bridge.
However, the latest accounts show that turnover dropped sharply from £27.47 million to £19.05 million last year, while pre-tax profits were down from £9.51 million to £1.73 million.
In a statement the company said this was “as anticipated and was largely due to the phasing of ongoing projects as they enter their latter stages and new projects as they started their concept stages”.
