Les Wexner

Leslie Herbert Wexner (born September 8, 1937) is an American billionaire businessman, the founder and chairman emeritus of Bath & Body Works, Inc. (formerly Limited Brands).

Wexner grew a business empire after starting The Limited, a clothing retailer, and later expanded his holdings to include Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, Inc., and Bath & Body Works.

Leslie Wexner was born in Dayton, Ohio, on September 8, 1937, to parents Bella née Cabakoff (1908–2001) and Harry Louis Wexner (1899–1975).

Both his parents were of Russian-Jewish origin.

His father was born in Russia and his mother was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

She moved to Columbus, Ohio as a toddler.

Wexner has a younger sister, Susan.

Wexner attended Bexley High School and Ohio State University.

He initially expressed an interest in architecture but graduated in 1959 with a major in business administration.

While a student at Ohio State University, he joined the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity.

Wexner served in the Air National Guard.

He briefly attended the Moritz College of Law.

Wexner began his retail career working in his parents' clothing store, "Leslie's", which had been named after him.

According to Wexner, he began working at his parents' store so they could take a vacation.

Wexner analyzed the sales and inventory, identifying the most and least profitable items.

When his father refused to adjust the inventory, Wexner decided to open his own store.

A. Alfred Taubman served as a mentor for Wexner, starting in the mid 1960s, and the two partnered on many deals involving Taubman's shopping malls.

In 1963, Wexner's aunt lent him $5,000 which he combined with a matching loan from a bank in order to start The Limited.

The store took its name from its focus on moderately priced merchandise, such as skirts, sweaters and shirts, that sold quickly and quickly generated revenue.

Wexner opened the first store on August 10, 1963, in the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus.

One year later, Wexner's parents closed their store and joined their son in running The Limited.

He opened the second Limited store in August 1964.

He took Limited Brands public in 1969, listed as LTD on the NYSE.

Wexner expanded The Limited considerably in the 1970s, having opened the 100th store in 1976.

He took on significant debt in 1978 to purchase the importer and manufacturer Mast Industries, which provided him with essential business advantages over competitors.

In the 1980s, Wexner doubled his retail holdings by purchasing other companies and became known as a major retail owner at malls in America.

Most notably, he acquired the lingerie business Victoria's Secret in 1982.

Started as an MBA project by Stanford graduate Roy Raymond, Victoria's Secret attracted Wexner's interest due to the unique, high quality merchandise and Victorian-era decor of the shop which featured red-velvet sofas.

Wexner described Raymond as "very guarded", stating, "When I met him, it was as if he met the devil."

Six months later, when Raymond was facing bankruptcy, he contacted Wexner and offered to sell Victoria's Secret.

Wexner retained Jeffrey Epstein as his financial manager from 1987 to 2007 and was initially the “main client” of Epstein’s money-management firm, according to Bloomberg.

Epstein ran his business out of a house Wexner owned and sometimes resided in while CEO of Victoria's Secret.

Wexner bought the company for $1 million and by 1992.

it was worth an estimated $1 billion.

After Wexner assumed ownership, Victoria's Secret became widely known for marketing its items with the use of super models featured in an annual fashion show, overseen by Ed Razek.

In 1993, Wexner hired Len Schlesinger, a Harvard Business School professor, whom he later appointed as a company director, to advise him.

Over the years, Wexner built L Brands, a retailing and marketing conglomerate that included Victoria's Secret, Pink (Victoria's Secret for teens), Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel, The White Barn Candle Company, and La Senza.

Previous brands that were spun off include Lane Bryant, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lerner New York, The Limited Too (now Tween Brands, Inc.), Structure 9, Aura Science, The Limited (which closed its brick-and-mortar stores while retaining its online presence), and Express (which closed its Canadian stores and hundreds of its U.S.-based stores).

In 2012, CNN Money described Wexner as the longest serving CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

By 2015, sales were in decline and 2018 was the final year for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.