Entertainment UK Limited (EUK) was a retail supply and distribution company and a wholly owned subsidiary of

Woolworths Group Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to: Businesses * F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores * Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shops ...

. The company, and Woolworths plc, entered administration with

Deloitte Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of profession ...

on 26 November 2008. EUK claimed to have had a turnover in excess of £1.4 billion per annum, and over 160,000 lines of products.

History

Entertainment UK was founded as Record Merchandisers Limited in 1966 by EMI Records to distribute music to non-specialist retailers. It later became a joint venture between a number of record companies. Woolworths became Entertainment UK's largest customer and in 1986 Record Merchandisers Limited was acquired by

Kingfisher plc Kingfisher plc is a British multinational retailing company headquartered in London, England. It has over 1,300 stores in nine countries, and its brands include B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt and Screwfix. Kingfisher is listed on the London St ...

. In 1988, Record Merchandisers Limited changed its name to Entertainment UK (EUK). EUK became the property of Woolworths Group after the demerger from parent company Kingfisher in 2001. In 2006, Woolworths Group acquired Total Home Entertainment Distribution Limited (THE) to form part of EUK division. In November 2007 EUK acquired

Bertram Books Bertrams was the second largest United Kingdom based wholesaler of books, owned since 2018 by Aurelius Investments. It has 200,000 titles available for same-day despatch and has access to over 13 million books in print. The group includes Bertram ...

, a major book wholesaler and distributor.

Administration

EUK was the most profitable arm of Woolworths Group and it was this portion of the business that the management hoped to retain when it attempted to divest itself of its retail arm and its liabilities. However, with the failure of the restructuring talks EUK went into administration with its parent company on the 28 November and immediately stopped deliveries. On 12 December 2008, 700 staff were made redundant. EUK continued to operate with a reduced workforce of 375. On 14 January 2009,

announced a further reduction of 134 employees across all 4 of EUK's remaining sites, and is continuing in its efforts to sell any remaining stock within the warehouses in order to service the debt. Following a number of "active discussions" with prospective suitors of Bertram Books, the administrators announced the sale of the company to

Smiths News Smiths News is a distributor of newspapers, magazines, books and consumables, headquartered in Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon ...

. On 13 March 2009,

Gardners Books Gardners’ is an international wholesalers of books, eBooks, music and film. They work with multi-channel retailers worldwide, both online and on the high street, to supply physical and digital products. They offer back to store or direct to co ...

based in

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...

, East Sussex visited Entertainment UK's

Greenford Greenford () is a suburb in the London Borough of Ealing in west London, England, lying west from Charing Cross. It has a population of 46,787 inhabitants, or 62,126 with the inclusion of Perivale. Greenford is served by Greenford Station (Lo ...

Auriol Drive site for talks about a possible purchase of the lease to the automated warehouse, and at one point it was believed that a deal totalling £1,500,000 was struck to purchase the lease. The Entertainment UK business was eventually officially dissolved on 20 April 2015.

Awards and acclaims

In 2005 and 2006, Entertainment UK was given 'The European Supply Chain Excellence' and 'The Global Retail Technology Forum' awards respectively in addition to the 'Best Retail Buying Team' at 2006 MCV Industry Excellence Awards.

Operations

Entertainment UK supplied many major retailers and signed new partnerships with

Zavvi Zavvi is an online retailer of entertainment products, including Blu-rays, collectables, homeware and toys. Originally a physical retailer, the brand has been online only since it was bought from administration by The Hut Group in 2009. History ...

(formerly

Virgin Megastores Virgin Megastores is an international entertainment retailing chain, founded in early 1976 by Richard Branson as a record shop on London's Oxford Street. In 1979 the company opened their first Megastore at the end of Oxford Street and Tottenha ...

) and

Asda Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...

in 2007. Other notable customers included

Morrisons Wm Morrison Supermarkets, trading as Morrisons, is the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the company had 497 supermarkets across England, Wales and Scotland, as well as one in Gibraltar. The company is headqua ...

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...

W H Smith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

and the

Borders UK Borders (UK) Ltd., also known as Borders & Books etc., was established as a Borders Group subsidiary in 1998, and in 2007 became independent of the US parent company. At its peak after separation from the US parent, it traded from its 41 Border ...

entertainment back catalogue. It also ran two

Amazon Marketplace Amazon Marketplace is an e-commerce platform owned and operated by Amazon that enables third-party sellers to sell new or used products on a fixed-price online marketplace alongside Amazon's regular offerings. Using Amazon Marketplace, third-party ...

stores on

Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

; "market plus", run by the offshore subsidiary Entertainment Plus (Guernsey) Ltd, and "direct-offers", the UK based stock clearance arm of Entertainment UK. As a consequence of EUK entering administration, Zavvi became unable to source stock on favourable terms from other supplies. It entered administration on 24 December 2008.

References

External links

* (Defunct) {{DEFAULTSORT:Entertainment Uk Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom Retail companies established in 1966 Retail companies disestablished in 2009 Companies that have entered administration in the United Kingdom F. W. Woolworth Company 1966 establishments in the United Kingdom