Samantha Cameron's mother makes £7m from luxury furniture firm she co-founded after selling it to Italian company for £40m

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Oka Direct was started by Lady Astor (pictured) along with her sister-in-law Sue Jones and friend Lucinda Waterhouse in 1999

Samantha Cameron’s mother is set to add millions to her fortune after the luxury furniture business she co-founded was sold to Italian buyers.

Oka Direct was started by Lady Astor along with her sister-in-law Sue Jones and friend Lucinda Waterhouse in 1999.

Its products include goat hair cushions, trendy wooden chairs, sofas and tableware, with celebrities such as Eddie Redmayne counted among its customers.

The Chelsea-based firm started as a mail-order business but has since expanded to have 13 stores, including a flagship shop in London’s Fulham Road, and employs more than 200 staff.

Yesterday it emerged that it has been sold to an Italian firm called Investindustrial, which also owns sports car maker Aston Martin, for £40 million.

The sale is thought to have added about £7 million to Lady Astor’s personal fortune.

Meanwhile, a company based in tax haven Guernsey will receive nearly half of the sale figure.

The viscountess, whose full name is Annabel Lucy Veronica Astor, was born into wealth. 

Her second husband, William Waldorf Astor III, owns the 20,000-acre Tarbert Estate on Hebridean island of Jura.

Her first husband, and Samantha Cameron’s father, was Sir Reginald Sheffield. They divorced in 1974.

She used to run a jewellery shop that was a favourite of Diana, Princess of Wales.

The mother-of-five, who splits her time between London and Oxfordshire, has previously said she started Oka after trying to furnish a holiday home in Florida but finding nothing that suited her tastes or budget.

With Mrs Jones, her brother’s wife, and Mrs Waterhouse, who is married to a close friend of her husband, she decided to source products she would put in her own home.

Oka reported annual profits of £1.6m on sales of £27.8m, according to accounts published for the year to January 2017.