First Quench Retailing was the largest independent
off-licence
A liquor store is a retail shop that predominantly sells prepackaged liquors – typically in bottles – usually intended to be consumed off the store's premises. Depending on region and local idiom, they may also be called an off-licence (i ...
retail chain in the UK, with around 1,300 shops operating under several retail brands, though all have now been closed. At the time of First Quench's closure, these included the Threshers, Haddows, The Local and Wine Rack chains.
Its head office was based in
Welwyn Garden City
Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...
,
Hertfordshire. On 29 October 2009 it was announced that the company had gone into administration.
History
![Haddows closing down sale - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Haddows_closing_down_sale_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1598674.jpg)
The company was originally formed as First Quench Retailing by the merger of the
Whitbread
Whitbread plc is a multinational British hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England.
The business was founded as a brewery in 1742, and had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s.
Its largest division ...
owned Threshers and the
Allied Domecq
Allied Domecq PLC was an international company, headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom, that operated spirits, wine, and quick service restaurant businesses. It was once a FTSE 100 Index constituent but has been acquired by Pernod Ricard. Th ...
owned Victoria Wine in August 1998. This brought together the 1,470 ''Thresher Wine Shop'', ''Drinks Cabin'', ''Wine Rack'', "Bottoms Up" and ''Huttons'' brands with around 1,500 ''Victoria Wine, Wine Cellar'', ''Haddows'', ''Martha's Vineyard'', and ''The Firkin''. Allied Domecq later sold their 50% of the company to
Punch Taverns
Punch Pubs & Co is a pub and bar operator in the United Kingdom, with around 1,300 leased pubs. It is headquartered in the traditional brewing centre of Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange as a constit ...
in September 1999.
In November 1991, Threshers, then owned by Whitbread alone, had bought the Peter Bottomfield Dominic Group from
Grand Metropolitan
Grand Metropolitan plc was a leisure, manufacturing and property conglomerate headquartered in England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it merged with Guinness plc to for ...
for £50m. The ''Bottoms Up'' brand of shops, formerly owned by Peter Bottomfield Dominic, was retained. Peter (Bottomfield) Dominic was separated from GrandMet's IDV group in 1989 to become a retail division.
At time of the merger, the company employed around 20,000 people and claimed to account for around 13% of the take home drinks market – Tesco, in comparison, claimed around 14%. The number of stores and employees were gradually reduced in the years following, although it remained the largest off-licence chain until the company's demise in 2009.
The company's stores were split across several brand focussed trading divisions which were eventually reduced to two. A wine-led division included their premium brand and high wine mix stores, with the 'drinks division' focussed around their convenience driven and drinks-led shops.
The company was purchased by the Japanese
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...
firm
Nomura Holdings
is a Japanese financial holding company and a principal member of the Nomura Group. It, along with its broker-dealer, banking and other financial services subsidiaries, provides investment, financing and related services to individual, institut ...
in October 2000 for £225m.
Terra Firma Capital Partners
Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd. (TFCP) is a UK-based private equity firm. Financier Guy Hands founded the firm in 2002 through the spin-off of Nomura Principal Finance Group. The firm, which traces its roots to the formation of its predecess ...
purchased the company in April 2002.
In March 2003
Terra Firma Capital Partners
Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd. (TFCP) is a UK-based private equity firm. Financier Guy Hands founded the firm in 2002 through the spin-off of Nomura Principal Finance Group. The firm, which traces its roots to the formation of its predecess ...
dispensed with the First Quench name and adopted Thresher Group as the overall company identity and trading name – First Quench Retailing Limited remained the legal name.
In July 2003 the company acquired gourmet meal business Leaping Salmon to attempt exploit the natural links between food and wine. They later experimented rebranding some stores 'Thresher + Food' to offer premium ready meals, but after the experiment proved unsuccessful, those stores were eventually reverted to either the 'Thresher's' or 'Wine Rack' brands.
The collapse of rival retailer
Unwins led to Threshers buying 200 stores, with the remaining 170 stores closing. The stores were rebranded as either 'The Local', 'Thresher's' or 'Wine Rack'.
In June 2007, Thresher Group was sold to the equity company
Vision Capital
Vision Capital is an international investor with a flexible capital approach to investing in mid-size private companies that has its headquarters in Western Europe and North America.
The company specializes in both the dynamics of private equit ...
for around £250 million.
In 2008 the company reverted to using the First Quench Retailing (FQR) name from Thresher Group.
On 29 October 2009 it was announced that First Quench Retailing had entered into administration, and KPMG were appointed administrators. The following day, 81 redundancies were made at the company's head office in Welwyn Garden City.
The brand names Thresher's, The Local, Bottoms Up and Victoria Wine were subsequently purchased by Midlands-based newsagent, off-licence and convenience store operator Dave's Discount Group. The Wine Rack brand was purchased by
Convivality Plc (at the time registered as
Bargain Booze
Bargain Booze is a chain of off licence shops, that operates in the United Kingdom. Established in 1981 in Sandbach, it grew to 836 shops and established the Bargain Booze Select Convenience shop franchise.
From 2013 to April 2018, it was own ...
Holdings Limited).
Previous branding
Brands trading at closure
Primarily wine with beer/ale/cider
:Wine Rack (True Blue) (customer service and product knowledge driven)
Value and convenience goods including alcohol
:The Local (Yellow)
:Threshers (Red)
Scottish brand, with main focus on wine/beer/cider/ale
:Haddows (Purple)
Brands which were phased out or renamed after takeovers or restructures
Wine-led
:Bottoms Up (offering up to 650 brands of wine in one shop)
:Wine Rack
:Victoria Wine
:Peter Dominic
:Martha's Vineyard
Drink retailing
:Threshers
:Drinks Cabin
:Unwins
:Firkin Off-Licence
:Hutton's
:Drinks Direct
See also
*
Majestic Wine
Majestic Wine is Great Britain’s largest specialist retailer of wine. The company employs over 1,400 staff nationwide, and operates more than 200 stores in the United Kingdom. The business is headquartered in Watford and has a distribution cen ...
*
Oddbins
References
External links
First Quench RetailingVision Capital(www.visioncapital.com)
{{Whitbread
British companies established in 1998
Retail companies established in 1998
Retail companies disestablished in 2009
Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom
Wine retailers of the United Kingdom
1998 establishments in the United Kingdom
2009 disestablishments in the United Kingdom