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Sears Plc
Sears plc was a large British-based conglomerate. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was acquired by Philip Green in 1999. History The business was founded by John and William Sears in 1891 and initially traded as bootmakers under the name of ''Trueform''.Richard Davenport-HineClore, Sir Charles (1904–1979)''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 It had acquired Freeman, Hardy and Willis by 1929. The business was acquired by Charles Clore in 1953. He renamed it Sears Holdings in 1955; it went on to buy the Manfield and Dolcis shoe shop chains the following year. In the late 1950s Clore consolidated all the shoe brands Sears had acquired under the name British Shoe Corporation under which name it also bought Saxone, Manfield, Lilley & Skinner, another shoe shop chain, in 1962. Despite the company using the Sears name, it has no relations with Chicago, Illinois-based Sears ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Green
Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green (born 15 March 1952) is a British businessman who was the chairman of the retail company the Arcadia Group. He owned the high street clothing retailers Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge from 2002 to 2020. As of May 2021, his net worth was estimated at £910 million. Green was the chairman and chief executive of Amber Day from 1988 to 1992. In 1999, he acquired Sears plc. He bought British Home Stores (BHS) for £200 million in 2000, and subsequently spent £840 million to acquire the Arcadia Group in 2002. Arcadia became a private company and was delisted from the London Stock Exchange.Arcadia History He unsuccessfully sought to acquire in 1999 and 200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selfridges
Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1908. The historic Daniel Burnham-designed flagship store on London's Oxford Street is the second-largest shop in the UK (after Harrods) and opened on 15 March 1909. Other Selfridges stores opened in the Trafford Centre (1998) and Exchange Square (2002) in Manchester, and in the Bullring in Birmingham (2003). In the 1940s, smaller provincial Selfridges stores were sold to the John Lewis Partnership, and in 1951, the original Oxford Street store was acquired by the Liverpool-based Lewis's chain of department stores. Lewis's and Selfridges were then taken over in 1965 by the Sears Group, owned by Charles Clore.subscription required Expanded under the Sears Group to include branches in Manchester and Birmingham, the chain was acquir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galen Weston
Willard Gordon Galen Weston (October 29, 1940April 12, 2021) was a British-Canadian billionaire businessman and Chairman Emeritus of George Weston Limited, a Canadian food processing and distribution company. Weston and his family, with an estimated net worth of US$8.7 billion, are listed as the third wealthiest in Canada and 178th in the world by ''Forbes'' magazine (June 2019). In addition to being one of the country's leading bakers through wholly owned subsidiary Weston Foods, he was an experienced supermarket retailer who maintained a controlling interest in Loblaw Companies, Canada's largest food retailer, through a family holding company. Weston was also head of the world's second-largest luxury goods retailer as chairman of Holt Renfrew in Canada and the Selfridges Group, owner of Selfridges in the United Kingdom, Brown Thomas in Ireland, the De Bijenkorf department store chain in the Netherlands, and the recently acquired Ogilvy department store in Montreal. Westo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hill Plc
William Hill is a British gambling company founded in 1934. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK and International. UK operations are conducted from its headquarters in London, alongside satellite offices in Leeds and Gibraltar, while its International business operates from its hub in Malta. The company was previously listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Caesars Entertainment in April 2021. In July 2022, William Hill was subsequently acquired by 888 Holdings for £2.2 billion. History The company was founded by William Hill in 1934. It changed hands many times, being acquired by Sears Holdings in 1971, then by Grand Metropolitan in 1988, then by Brent Walker in 1989. In September 1996, Brent Walker recouped £117m of the £685m it had paid for William Hill when Grand Metropolitan were found to have exaggerated the company's profits at the time of the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asset Strip
Asset stripping is a term used to refer to the practice of selling off a company's assets in order to improve returns for equity investors. In many cases where the term is used, a financial investor, referred to as a 'corporate raider', takes control of another company and then auctions off the acquired company's assets. The term is generally used in a pejorative sense as such activity is not considered helpful to the company. The proceeds of the sale of assets may be used to lower the company's net debt. Alternatively, they may be used to pay a dividend to equityholders, leaving the company with lower net worth – i.e. the same level of debt but fewer assets (and weaker earnings) to support that debt. With a lower level of assets, some argue that the business is rendered less financially stable or viable. For example, the sale-and-leaseback of a building would lead to an increased rental bill for the company. Asset stripping is a highly controversial topic within the financial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Owen Owen
Owen Owen was a Liverpool-based operator of department stores in the United Kingdom and Canada. Beginning with a drapery shop in Liverpool, a chain of department stores was built up, often by taking over rival retailers. The company remained under Owen / Norman family control until the 1980s, and the brand ceased to be used in 2007. Founder and early history Owen Owen was born on 13 October 1847 at Cwmrhaeadr near Machynlleth at the westernmost tip of Montgomeryshire, Wales.National Library of Wales, Owen Owen, Liverpo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubicon Retail
{{Infobox company , name = Rubicon Retail , foundation = 2002 , defunct = 2006 , location_city = London , location_country = United Kingdom , industry = Retail , subsid = Warehouse, Principles , products = Clothing, Accessories, Shoes Rubicon Retail was a British retail group which traded between 2002 and 2006. The firm was formed in 2002 when a management buyout of several firms then owned by Arcadia Group took place. This resulted in high street chains Warehouse and Principles, and catalogue retailers Hawkshead and Racing Green, being transferred from Arcadia to Rubicon. Warehouse had been part of Arcadia since 1999, having previously been part of Sears plc, and Principles had been founded by Arcadia's predecessor Burton Group in 1984. During its lifetime, Rubicon sold off Hawkshead and Racing Green, and purchased the Shoe Studio Group, which operated from a series of upmarket shoe retail stores. In 200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Hinchliffe
Stephen Leonard Hinchliffe (born 2 January 1950, in Sheffield) is an English businessman from Sheffield who was the founder of the former retail empire Facia group, which had up to 850 stores before it collapsed in 1996. He has been a director of 60 companies. He was jailed in 2001 and 2003 for bribery and fraud. Business career Hinchliffe was the 2nd largest UK Renault new car dealer in the 1970s. After training to be an accountant, Hinchliffe worked in a Sheffield engineering company and a Trent Regional Health Authority. He switched to marketing at grocers Mars and computer systems company Memorex. Wilkes In 1984, Hinchliffe led a management buyout of the Sheffield department store chain Wades, then suffering a £2m deficit, from Asda with a £200,000 stake. After the sale the chain returned a £2m profit and was sold on for £20m to Waring & Gillow – the buyout team made £7.3m profit and he personally made £2.9m. Using the profits from that sale and other property deals, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Shops
Richard Shops was a British high street retailer of women's fashion. History The business was created in 1936 by John Sofio, who modelled the business on the US company Learner Brothers. The company was bankrupt by 1941 and was purchased by Charles Clore for £45,000, who subsequently expanded the business before selling it on for £800,000 in 1949 to United Drapery Stores. Richards was managed by Rudy Weil until his retirement in the mid-1970s. From the 1960s to the 1990s, an expansion of the number of stores saw it as a ubiquitous part of almost every British high street and shopping centre, selling fashion clothing designed to appeal to young women. In the 1970s a hugely popular television advertisement began to appear with a memorable jingle, also used for radio advertisements on Capital Radio. In 1983 UDS was sold to Hanson plc. Hanson started selling off parts if UDS to pay for its purchase. Fellow UDS bedfellow John Collier was purchased in a management buyout, but R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Limited Company
A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited liability company whose shares may be freely sold and traded to the public (although a PLC may also be privately held, often by another PLC), with a minimum share capital of £50,000 and usually with the letters PLC after its name. Similar companies in the United States are called Public company, ''publicly traded companies''. Public limited companies will also have a separate legal identity. A PLC can be either an unlisted or listed company on the stock exchanges. In the United Kingdom, a public limited company usually must include the words "public limited company" or the abbreviation "PLC" or "plc" at the end and as part of the legal company name. Welsh companies may instead choose to end their names with , an abbreviation for '. However, some public l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adams Childrenswear
Adams Kids was a children's clothing retailer, based in Paddington, London in the United Kingdom. History Early history Amy Adams started a children's clothing business from her own home in Birmingham in 1933. She then opened another three stores in quick succession. Until 1973, Amy Adams and her son Michael ran the company independently, when they sold it to Foster Brothers. In 1983, Foster Brothers was itself acquired by Sears Holdings plc. Adams had over two hundred stores by the 1980s, and by the 1990s, it had become a key player in the childrenswear market. The company opened its first international franchise in Saudi Arabia in 1997. Further international stores were then opened in Cyprus, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Finland, Malta, India and Slovakia. In January 1999, Sears was acquired by Philip Green, who then agreed to a management buy out of Adams Childrenswear. In August 2001, it was announced that Adams planned to double in size by 2005. Mini Mode brand Adams ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallis (retailer)
Wallis is an online British women's clothing brand. Previously a retailer, Wallis operated from 134 stores and 126 concessions across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Wallis was a subsidiary of the Arcadia Group before its collapse in late 2020. The brand is now owned by Boohoo.com. History The first store was opened by the founder, Raphael Nat Wallis, in Chapel Market, Islington in 1923. Known from the start for its coats (sold originally for 19 shillings) and dresses, it had the slogan: 'Comparison invited. Competition defied". By the 1940s, the chain had 25 shops and a turnover of £300,000 a year. 1960s fashion success From the 1950s, under the leadership of Jeffrey Wallis, son of the founder, the company became known for its selections from Paris – from 1957 this was known as 'pick of Paris', later this became 'Paris Originals' – and produced exact copies of top couture clothes. Paying a fee to attend the fashion shows of names such as André Courrèges, Courrèges, Cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
