WATCH: Moment when CEO of shapewear company gifts staff $10,000 cash, air trips 'to anywhere'

Celebrating its new $1.2 billion valuation, the CEO of Spanx, a US shapewear company, surprised its employees by gifting two first-class plane tickets and $10,000 each.

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.

The company’s CEO Sara Blakely posted a video on social media to capture the reactions of her employees while announcing the gifts to employees, who gathered in person and over Zoom.

In remarks posted to social media, Blakely said: “To stand here today, and [to] think about what we’ve been able to create and what we’ve been able to do by being authentic and kind and delivering amazing products to women to use their very feminine principles in a very masculine space which is business, leading with intuition, vulnerability … this marks a moment for female entrepreneurs.”

During her speech, she honoured other women in business. "I want to toast the women that came before me and all of the women in the world who have not had this opportunity," Blakely said.

Blakely started the company in 2000 with $5,000 she made selling fax machines door-to-door.

"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.

(With inputs from agencies)