Debenhams

Debenhams is a British multinational retailer operating department stores in the United Kingdom and Denmark, with franchise stores in other countries. The company was founded in the eighteenth century as a single store in London and has now grown to 178 locations across those countries. It sells a range of clothing, household items, and furniture.

For other uses, see Debenham (disambiguation).

Debenhams

Debenhams' flagship store on Oxford Street, London
Trade name	Debenhams plc (2006–2019)
Type	Private limited company
Traded as	LSE: DEB (2006–2019)[1]
Industry	Fashion retail
Fate	In Administration twice
Founded	1778 (by William Clark) 1813 (as Clark & Debenham)
Founder	William Debenham
Headquarters	334-348 Oxford Street, London, England, United Kingdom
Area served	UK Denmark more
Key people	Stefaan Vansteenkiste (CEO)
Products	Fashion clothing shoes Toys accessories cosmetics Gifts Electricals home and furniture
Brands	Debenhams Men Debenhams Kids Debenhams Women
Revenue	£2,277.0 million (2018)[2]
Operating income	£43.4 million (2018)[2]
Net income	£(461.0) million (2018)[2]
Owner	Celine (consortium of lenders including Barclays, Bank of Ireland, Silver Point Capital and GoldenTree)[3]
Number of employees	25, 000 (2019)[4]
Parent	Celine Jersey Topco Limited
Subsidiaries	Magasin du Nord
Website	www.debenhams.com

Headquartered in Regent's Place in the London Borough of Camden, the company owns the Danish department store chain, Magasin du Nord.

On 9 April 2020, Debenhams entered administration again, exactly one year after having entered administration previously.[5]

History

18th and 19th centuries

The former Debenham, Son & Freebody building in Wigmore Street which was completed in 1908

The business was formed in 1778 by William Clark, who began trading at 44 Wigmore Street in London as a drapers' store.[6] In 1813, William Debenham became a partner and the corporate name changed to Clark & Debenham. The shop was later renamed Cavendish House and carried drapery, silks, haberdashery, millinery, hosiery, lace and family mourning goods. As the trade grew, the partners determined to expand the business by opening branches in Cheltenham and Harrogate.[7]

By 1823, Clark & Debenham had opened a small drapery business at 3 Promenade Rooms, Cheltenham, selling a selection of silks, muslins, shawls, gloves, lace and fancy goods.[7] In 1837, Clark retired from the business and Debenham assumed two of his most trusted staff, William Pooley and John Smith, as partners, trading in both London and Cheltenham as Debenham, Pooley & Smith.[7] By 1840, the management of the Cheltenham branch appears to have been given to Clement Freebody, Debenham's brother-in-law. Around 1843, another branch shop was launched in Harrogate.[7]

Extended and refurbished premises opened in Cheltenham in October 1844. Pooley and Smith retired from the business in 1851 when Debenham took his son, William, and Clement Freebody into partnership, trading as Debenham, Son & Freebody. At this time all three shops in London, Cheltenham and Harrogate were trading in similar goods and issued a joint catalogue, called the Fashion Book, that was the basis of an extensive mail-order trade. In 1876 when Freebody retired, a new partnership, Debenham & Hewitt, was formed. George Hewitt appears to have worked at the Cheltenham store as a draper's assistant during the early 1860s but details of his subsequent career are not known. By 1883, George Hewitt was the sole owner of the Cheltenham business, Frank and William Debenham having withdrawn to manage the London store as a separate concern.[7]

20th century

Crypt Chambers in Chester houses part of the Browns of Chester store and is a Grade I listed building.

The business was incorporated as Debenhams Limited in 1905.[8] A new headquarters building, which was designed by William Wallace and James Glen Sivewright Gibson[9] and built by Trollope & Colls, was completed in Wigmore Street in 1908.[10] The modern Debenhams group grew from the acquisition of department stores in towns and cities throughout the UK, under the leadership of its chairman, Ernest Debenham. The first of these purchases, Marshall & Snelgrove at Oxford Street in London, was acquired through a one sided merger in 1919. Later purchases included Harvey Nichols in London's Knightsbridge in 1920.[11] Most of the acquired stores retained their former identities until a unified corporate image was rolled out. The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1928, shortly after it had purchased fellow retail group Drapery Trust.[12]

In 1976 the company acquired Browns of Chester. It remains the only one of the company's UK stores to have retained an individual identity.[11] The business diversified during the 1970s buying South East based supermarket group Cater Brothers in 1972, after the death of its chairman Leslie Cater. Using the new purchasing power Debenhams modernised its 40 food halls within its stores, branding them Cater's Food Halls, and opened two new Cater superstores. However the business declined in the intense marketplace and in 1979 the chain was sold to Allied Suppliers who converted the Cater stores into their Presto format.[13]

Debenhams was targeted three times during the 1980s by the Animal Liberation Front in protest at the sale of animal furs in stores. Stores in Romford, Luton, and Harrow were fire-bombed by members, the worst attack being on the Luton store. As a result, the company stopped selling clothes with animal furs.[14] It was alleged by Caroline Lucas MP in a debate in Westminster Hall that Bob Lambert, a then undercover police officer, planted the fire bomb that caused £340,000 worth of damage to the Harrow branch of Debenhams in 1987. It is unclear if anything has come of these allegations as of March 2014.[14][15][16][17]

In 1985 the company was acquired by the Burton Group.[11] Following the closure of the store in Dudley in January 1981 and the Birmingham store in 1983, the company's only store in the West Midlands for the next six years was a town centre store in Walsall. On 4 November 1989, it opened a store at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Brierley Hill.[18] Debenhams demerged from the Burton Group in January 1998 and was once again listed as a separate company on the London Stock Exchange.[19] It expanded under the leadership of Belinda Earl who was appointed CEO in 2000.[20]

21st century

Debenhams in Bury St Edmunds

Debenhams opened its largest British store on 4 September 2003, at the new Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham.[21] The new store contains 19,230 sq m and opened 20 years after the company closed its Birmingham city centre store due to declining trade.[22] A private consortium named Baroness Retail Limited acquired the company in November 2003,[23] and it returned to a listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2006. The consortium comprised CVC Capital Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, and management.[24]

Debenhams' flagship store in Oxford Street, London, England

The company purchased the brand name and stock of Principles in March 2009 after the business entered administration. Principles operated concessions within 121 Debenhams stores, and was subsequently relaunched by Ben de Lisi as part of the Designers at Debenhams range.[25] In November 2009, Debenhams acquired the Danish department store group Magasin Du Nord for £12.3 million.[26] The company operates six stores in Denmark under the Magasin brand.[27]

In July 2010 Debenhams purchased the 115 Faith concessions trading within its stores, after Faith entered administration.[28] In April 2012 the company announced it would be building 14 new stores, and was in negotiations over a further 25 sites in the UK.[29] Debenhams agreed to become the anchor store at the Riverside shopping centre in Shrewsbury.[30] By September 2012, the company announced that like-for-like sales had risen by 3.3% in the six months up to that date.[31]

Debenhams, Bradford.

Debenhams moved to a new headquarters in 2013, in Brock Street, London. The company moved to a new building, built by British Land in Regent's Place. The company leased 174,500 square feet (16,000 m²) of office space from British Land for 25 years.[32] The company began a refurbishment of its flagship store in Oxford Street in 2013, which involved the installation of 180,000 aluminium tiles on the exterior of the building that appears to ripple with the wind. An existing floor was also converted to become a trading floor. The total cost of the refurbishment was in the region of £40 million, of which Debenhams contributed £25 million. The owner of the building, British Land, also contributed towards the cost.[33] The refurbishment is due to be completed by February 2014.[34]

The company's trading statement for the 17 weeks up to 28 December 2013 was released on 31 December 2013, and revealed a reduction in pre-tax profit from £115 million to £85 million.[35] On 2 January 2014, the company's chief financial officer Simon Herrick resigned, following criticism of his financial decisions.[36] On 13 January 2014 4.6% of Debenhams shares were bought by Sports Direct, the retailer run by Mike Ashley. The stock market purchase of 56.8 million shares (worth around £46m) was made without the prior knowledge of the Debenhams board. Sports Direct stated at the time it intends to be a supportive share holder. The Debenhams board responded by stating they are open-minded with regard to exploring operational opportunities to improve its performance.[37][38] Sports Direct sold its shares on 16 January 2014, although they took out an option to buy further shares up to a total of 6.6%.[39] In August 2017, it emerged that Ashley had secured 21% of the shares which gave him over 10% of voting rights in the company.[40]

Debenhams, Swindon

During 2017 Debenhams opened two new stores, one in Stevenage and one in Wolverhampton. The 80,000 sq ft Stevenage store was opened on 24 August 2017 at Roaring Meg Retail and Leisure Park by Celebrity fashion designer Julien MacDonald and local hero Jean Robinson, who had won a competition for the privilege. The store is the first to be designed under the vision of CEO Sergio Bucher, with a new layout and format with the emphasis on encouraging people to stay longer.[41] The second store to open during 2017 is the new 93,000 sq ft store at Wolverhampton's Mander Centre. The store was opened on 12 October 2017 as part of the centre's £35 million refurbishments, it is also Debenhams' first store in Wolverhampton. It is only the second to feature the new layout previously only seen in the Stevenage store, and only the second to feature the company’s new deli-restaurant format Loaf & Bloom, only previously seen at Milton Keynes.[42]

In February 2018, the company announced a reduction of up to 320 store management roles across the business by the end of March.[43] Sports Direct increased its holding in the company to 29.7% on 2 March, just below the level whereby it would be required to submit a formal takeover approach.[44]

After considerable media speculation about Debenhams' survival,[45] in 2018 the company announced the largest loss in its history, a pre-tax loss of £491 million,[2] and the closure of up to 50 stores with the potential loss of 4,000 jobs.[46]

On 9 April 2019, the company announced that they had gone into pre-pack administration.[47]

On 26 April 2019, the company announced that in addition to rent reductions on all except 39 stores, 22 stores would close after Christmas 2019. This included the recently opened Wolverhampton store (described above) in addition to the following stores: Altrincham, Ashford, Birmingham Fort, Canterbury, Chatham, Eastbourne, Folkestone, Great Yarmouth, Guildford, Kirkcaldy, Orpington, Slough, Southport, Southsea, Staines, Stockton-on-Tees, Walton-on-Thames, Wandsworth, Welwyn Garden City, Wimbledon and Witney.[48]

On 6 April 2020, Debenhams confirmed it had filed a notice of intent to appoint administrators.[49][50] CEO Stefaan Vansteenkiste said it was due to "unprecedented" circumstances caused by the UK coronavirus lockdown and was to "protect [the] business, ... employees, and other important stakeholders".[51] On 9 April 2020, the company went into administration.[5]

On 9 April 2020, Debenhams confirmed it planned to close 11 stores in the Republic of Ireland with immediate effect.[52]

In April 2020, Debenhams closed 7 stores in the UK and will be closing 5 more in the UK when the Coronavirus restrictions are lifted.[53] This included the Croydon store than anchored the shopping mall, Centrale (previously the Drummond Centre) that Debenhams had acquired when they previously took over the Kennards chain of stores, bring to close a trading period of more than 150 years from that site.[54]

In July 2020, Debenhams was set to abandon its property in Princes Street in Edinburgh, which it leases from Legal & General, in order to make room for a £50m hotel.[55] In the same month, Debenhams put itself up for sale to prevent it going into liquidation and hopes to find a buyer by September.[56] In August 2020, the company announced that will cut additional 2,500 job positions as a result of the economic effects caused by the pandemic. The job cuts will be mostly in the store management positions; the sales manager, visual merchandise manager and selling support manager roles are set to be axed. According to the company, "The trading environment is clearly a long way from returning to normal. Such difficult decisions are being taken by many retailers right now, and we will continue to take all necessary steps to give Debenhams every chance of a viable future."[57]

Products and services

Benefit stand in the Sutton, London branch

In 1993 the company introduced the 'Designers at Debenhams' brand, the creation of then CEO Belinda Earl, Ben de Lisi and Spencer Hawken.[58] The idea put designer names and brands at High Street prices, including Jasper Conran, John Rocha, Butterfly by Matthew Williamson, H! by Henry Holland, Star by Julien Macdonald, Frost French, Janet Reger, Ted Baker, St George by Duffer, Jeff Banks, and Ben de Lisi. The company also sells goods under a number of brand names that it owns.[59] In 2010, Debenhams announced the launch of four new designer names to its fashion range; Jonathan Saunders, Preen, Jonathan Kelsey, and Roksanda Ilincic.[60]

Oasis concession in the Sutton, London branch

Stores also contain concessions whereby other retailers may trade. Brands in stores include Oasis, Coast, Phase Eight and Warehouse. In June 2014, the company announced a trial of Sports Direct concessions in its Harrow and Southsea stores, which if successful would be expanded to other stores. This followed the purchase of a stake in Debenhams by Mike Ashley, the owner of Sports Direct, in January 2014.[61] Later that year, Debenhams also launched trials of Costa Coffee and Mothercare concessions within stores.[62][63]

In October 2016, the company announced it would begin to focus less on clothing and more on food, beauty products and gifts.[64] It also hired the former lighting buying team of collapsed rival BHS to begin introducing new lighting departments in stores.[65] Debenhams followed this in December 2016 with a plan to discontinue its Betty Jackson Black ladies fashion brand, and significantly reduce its Jeff Banks menswear range in favour of expanding the Hammond & Co. brand.[66]

The company operates retail websites in the UK and Ireland, as well as a mobile-enabled website and mobile apps that allow customers to shop the online range and scan product barcodes in store.[67]

Debenhams provide store card and credit card services, operated by NewDay. Insurance products are also provided under the Debenhams brand by other financial companies. Debenhams also operate bureaux de change in selected stores. The company also operates a loyalty card programme, branded the Debenhams Beauty Club, where customers can collect points with the purchase of health and beauty products.[68]

Stores

United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland

As of June 2020, the company owns and operates 122 stores in the United Kingdom, and Denmark. Stores in Denmark trade under the Magasin du Nord brand.[69] Debenhams occupies the most sites of any of the traditional department store groups in the UK. The majority of the original trading names of the stores, in each of their respective locations, were replaced with the "Debenhams" name during the 1970s. All department stores in the group now trade as "Debenhams" (although the store in Chester is still dual-signed as Debenhams and Browns of Chester).[70]

In April 2020, stores operated in the Republic of Ireland by Debenhams Ireland ceased trading with the loss of nearly 2000 jobs[71] (the four Debenhams stores in Northern Ireland are operated as part of the United Kingdom business).

Stores amalgamated into the group include:

Store name	Location	Notes
Adnitt Brothers	Northampton	Bought 1952; rebranded 1973.
Allders	Basildon, Chatham, Clapham Junction, Ilford, Portsmouth, Slough, Sutton and Woking	Clapham Junction traded as Arding & Hobbs
V H Bennett	Weymouth
Bobby & Co.	Bournemouth, Cliftonville, Eastbourne, Exeter, High Wycombe, Folkestone, Leamington Spa, Margate, Southport and Torquay	Bought 1928 as part of Drapery Trust. Stores in Bournemouth and Torquay continue to trade as Debenhams (2020).
Bonds	Chelmsford
Bon Marché	Gloucester	Bought 1928 as part of Drapery Trust; rebranded 1971.
Browns of Chester	Chester and Bangor	Bought 1975.
Busbys	Bradford, Harrogate and Ilkley	Bought 1958; rebranded 1973. Bradford closed 1978. Harrogate continues to trade as Debenhams (2020).
W & A Chapman	Taunton
Corders	Ipswich	Merged with Footman Pretty when the current store was built.
Curl Brothers	Norwich
Drages	High Holborn and Birmingham	Bought 1928 as part of Drapery Trust; closed.
Elliston & Cavell	Oxford	Bought 1953.
Footman Pretty	Ipswich	Merged with Corders once the current store was built.
Griffin & Spalding	Nottingham	Bought 1944.[72]
Edward Grey	Birmingham, Dudley, Halesowen, Stourbridge, Walsall and Willenhall	All except Walsall now closed.
Handleys	Southsea
John K Hubbard	Worthing
John Yeo	Plymouth	Merged with Spooners.
Jermyn & Sons	Kings Lynn
Jones	Bristol
Edwin Jones	Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth
Kennards	Croydon, Redhill, Staines and Wimbledon	Bought 1928 as part of Drapery Trust.
Leas	Leicester
William Lefevre	Canterbury
Lewis's	Glasgow and Hanley
Marshall & Snelgrove	Oxford Street, Birmingham, Bradford, Harrogate, Leeds, Leicester, Scarborough, Southport and York
Joseph Newhouse	Middlesbrough
Nicholsons	St Paul's Churchyard, relocated to Bromley
Owen Owen	Crawley
Pauldens	Manchester and Sheffield	Bought 1920.
Pendleburys	Wigan	Bought 1948.
Plummer Roddis	Hastings, Andover, Bath, Boscombe, Bournemouth, Brighton, Eastbourne, Folkestone, Guildford, Southampton and Yeovil
Ranbys	Derby
Matthias Robinson	West Hartlepool, Darlington, Leeds and Stockton-on-Tees	Bought 1962.
E P Rose	Bedford
Sheriff & Ward	Winchester
Simes	Worcester
J C Smith & Son	Nuneaton, Bedworth and Stratford upon Avon
Sopers	Harrow
Spooners	Plymouth
Stones	Romford
Style & Gerrish	Salisbury
Swan & Edgar	Piccadilly Circus	Bought 1928 as part of Drapery Trust.
Taylors	Clifton
Wellsteeds	Reading
Woolland Brothers	Knightsbridge	Bought 1949; closed 1967.
Thornton Varley	Kingston-upon-Hull	Bought 1953

International franchises

The Debenhams brand is used in 45 stores operating under licence in 17 other countries.[73] The store in Australia closed in January 2020.[74]

References

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66. Armitage, Jim (19 December 2016). "Debenhams shakes-up long-standing fashion designer partnerships". Evening Standard. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
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68. "Beauty Club". Debenhams. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
69. "Stores - own operated". Debenhams. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
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External links

• Debenhams – official site
• Debenhams – corporate site
• Documents and clippings about Debenhams in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW