The story
Founded by William Debenham in 1778, in Paris.1
18th and 19th centuries
The business was formed in 1778 by William Clark, who began trading at 44 Wigmore Street in London as a drapers' store. In 1813, William Debenham became a partner and the corporate name changed to Clark & Debenham. The shop was later renamed Cavendish House and sold 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.
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. In 1837, Clark retired from the business and Debenham took two of his most trusted staff, William Pooley and John Smith, as partners, trading in both London and Cheltenham as Debenham, Pooley & Smith. 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.
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 By 1883, George Hewitt was the sole owner of the Cheltenham business, Frank and William Debenham having withdrawn to manage the London store as a separate concern.
20th century
The business was incorporated as Debenhams Limited in 1905. A new headquarters building, which was designed by William Wallace and James Glen Sivewright Gibson and built by Trollope & Colls, was completed in Wigmore Street in 1908. Debenhams at this time did not operate any other department stores, but did supply to others across the country via its wholesale business. It was because of the debts owed to them through their wholesaling deals that they acquired control over Marshall & Snelgrove at Oxford Street and Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge both in London in 1919. The business at this time was run by Ernest Debenham and his close friend Frederick Oliver. In 1926, Oliver retired, and upon the advice of the Whitehall Trust, Debenhams Securities was formed to buy Oliver's share in the business, with Ernest Debenham as chair and being joined by Frederick Richmond and Maurice Wright. The business also operated the London booksellers J & E Bumpus.
However, during the mid-1920s, several new investment groups were created and started buying up regional drapers and department stores. Clarence Hatry had created the Drapery Trust in 1925, while Charterhouse Bank's company, Charterhouse Investments Trust (under Sir Arthur Wheeler, 1st Baronet), had created United Drapery Stores in 1927, and Selfridge Provincial Stores was created by James White and Gordon Selfridge in 1926. These were seen to be a threat to Debenhams' wholesale business, as the company would lose sales to these new combined groups. Frederick Richmond and Maurice Wright thought it was too late to start creating a provincial group, so started negotiations with Clarence Hatry in 1927 to purchase the Drapery Trust. By November the deal was agreed for £2,350,000, mostly funded through Hatry's company Austin Friars Trust purchasing £1,600,000 of Debenhams shares.
As part of the deal, Ernest Debenham was forced out of the business, along with his son Peter. In a letter to The Times, Ernest wrote
A month ago I had no intention of retiring from the management of Debenhams Securities. Indeed, I had every reason to hope that the connection of myself and my family with that business would be indefinitely prolonged. When the offer was made to purchase all or any of the ordinary shares in Debenhams Securities, circumstances of no interest to the general investing public compelled me to accept the offer.
The new enlarged company was offered to the public in February 1928, with the release of 2 million preference shares through merchant bank M. Samuel & Co, with the company being first listed on the London Stock Exchange later that year. In 1929, as part of his fraudulent plan to raise the cash for his deal to purchase United Steel, Hatry forged £478,100 of shares in the Drapery Trust, but by September 1929 he had confessed to his crimes. The connection of Clarence Hatry to Debenhams plunged the company into a crisis once his finances started to unravel, in addition to the Drapery Trust dividend collapsing and its export business diving due to the economy. Maurice Wright completed a rewriting of the capital in 1934, and merged the three operations, Debenhams, Debenhams Securities and Drapery Trust, slashing the company's issued capital from £15,100,000 to £6,000,000. Wright would later be made Managing Director, before becoming Chairman in 1948.
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During the 1930s and 1940s the company continued to expand, becoming the biggest department store company in the country by 1948, with the stores retaining their original names until a reorganisation in the 1970s. In 1944 the company announced a post-tax profit of £249,605. An example of these acquisitions was the purchase of the Norwich stores of Buntings and Chamberlains in 1949, leading to their controlling four of the city's department stores. During 1957, the company purchased the ladies fashion store, Cresta, from W. Garfield Weston's Howardsgate Holdings. In 1959 the business failed in a takeover of rival department store group Harrods, rivalling United Drapery Stores and eventual winner House of Fraser.
The company closed several branches in 1970, with Birmingham (Marshall & Snelgrove, formerly Warwick House), Manchester (Marshall & Snelgrove in St Annes Place), Sheffield (Marshall & Snelgrove, Leopold Street) and Southsea (Plummers, Palmerston Road) properties being sold by auction. In 1972, United Drapery Stores made an offer to purchase Debenhams, along with interest from Sears plc and Tesco, but were fought off by chairman Sir Anthony Burney. The company entered the superstore revolution by opening two Scan Superstores, which sold an assortment of Debenhams normal products in a supermarket like environment. In 1976 the company acquired Browns of Chester. It remained the only one of the company's UK stores to have retained an individual identity until all stores closed in 2021. 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. Debenham's other experiment into the superstore market, the two Scan Superstores were sold to Tesco in February 1978. Other diversifications included Greens Cameras & High-Fi and New Dimension, a home furniture and furnishing business. The company continued to open new stores, with Mansfield, Stirling and Eltham being opened in 1977. The company at times struggled in the 1970s, with a former chief executive stating it had
too much selling space and too little talent to fill it
The company closed its ladies clothing chain Cresta in 1980, selling 27 of the stores to Irvine Sellar's fashion group, which also purchased the York store which was rebranded as Marshalls by Sellars. This followed on from the £1.7 million sale of Greens Photography and Hifi to Dixons in late 1979.
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. 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.
In 1985 the company was acquired by the Burton Group. At the time of the takeover deal, Burtons claimed,
We will end, however, Debenhams' hotch potch of shops-in-shops with conflicting marketing images and the confusing merchandising and floor layouts
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.
Debenhams entered Ireland as the anchor store at the Jervis Shopping Centre in Dublin in 1996, and then established a second anchor store at Mahon Point Shopping Centre in Cork in 2005.
Debenhams demerged from the Burton Group in January 1998 and was once again listed as a separate company on the London Stock Exchange. It expanded under the leadership of Belinda Earl who was appointed CEO in 2000.
21st century
Debenhams opened its largest British store on 4 September 2003, at the new Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham. The new store contained 19,230 sq m and opened 20 years after the company closed its Birmingham city centre store due to declining trade. A private consortium named Baroness Retail Limited, comprising CVC Capital Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity and management, acquired the company in November 2003 in a leveraged buyout, for which the consortium only provided £600m of equity and added £1.2bn in debt. According to The Financial Times, the consortium "then extracted more than £1bn via property sale and leaseback agreements", before returning the business to a listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2006.
On 8 August 2006, it was announced that Debenhams would buy the leaseholds of nine of the 11 Roches Stores department stores in Ireland for €29 million. Under the deal, the stores, including those in St. Patrick's Street in Cork and Henry Street in Dublin would be rebranded as Debenhams stores. The Roche family retained the ownership of the stores, and Debenhams became the new tenants.
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. In November 2009, Debenhams acquired the Danish department store group Magasin du Nord for £12.3 million. The company operated six stores in Denmark under the Magasin brand.
In July 2010 Debenhams purchased the 115 Faith concessions trading within its stores, after Faith entered administration. 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. Debenhams agreed to become the anchor store at the Riverside shopping centre in Shrewsbury. By September 2012, the company announced that like-for-like sales had risen by 3.3% in the six months up to that date.
Debenhams moved to a new headquarters in 2013, in Brock Street, London built by British Land. The company leased 174,500 square feet (16,000 m2) of office space from British Land for 25 years. The company began a refurbishment of its flagship store in Oxford Street, London 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. The refurbishment was due to be completed by February 2014.
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. On 2 January 2014, the company's chief financial officer Simon Herrick resigned, following criticism of his financial decisions. 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 intended to be a supportive share holder. The Debenhams board responded by stating they were open-minded with regard to exploring operational opportunities to improve its performance. 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%. In August 2017, it emerged that Ashley had secured 21% of the shares which gave him over 10% of voting rights in the company.
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 was 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.
The second store to open during 2017 was 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 was also Debenhams' first store in Wolverhampton. It was 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.
In February 2018, the company announced a reduction of up to 320 store management roles across the business by the end of March. 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.
Financial difficulties
After media speculation about Debenhams' survival, in 2018 the company announced the largest loss in its history, a pre-tax loss of £491 million, and the closure of up to 50 stores with the potential loss of 4,000 jobs.
On 9 April 2019, the company announced that they had gone into pre-pack administration.
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 plus 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.
On 6 April 2020, Debenhams confirmed it had filed a notice of intent to appoint administrators. CEO Stefaan Vansteenkiste said it was due to "unprecedented" circumstances caused by the COVID-19 lockdown and was to "protect [the] business,... employees, and other important stakeholders". On 9 April 2020, the company went into administration.
On 9 April 2020, Debenhams confirmed it planned to close 11 stores in Ireland with immediate effect.
In April 2020, Debenhams closed seven UK stores and was set to close five more when Coronavirus restrictions were lifted. This included the Croydon store that anchored the Centrale shopping mall (previously the Drummond Centre) that Debenhams had acquired when they took over the Kennards chain of stores, bringing to a close a trading period of more than 150 years from that site.
In July 2020, Debenhams was set to abandon its property in Princes Street in Edinburgh, which it leased from Legal & General, in order to make room for a £50m hotel. In the same month, Debenhams put itself up for sale to prevent it going into liquidation, hoping to find a buyer by September. In August 2020, the company announced it was cutting 2,500 job positions as a result of the economic effects of the pandemic. The job cuts affected store management positions; sales managers, visual merchandise managers, and selling support managers were 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." In September 2020, Debenhams put its seven store Danish chain, Magasin du Nord, up for sale. Magasin du Nord was later sold to German department store Peek & Cloppenburg for £120 million.
On 1 December 2020, after the collapse of talks with Arcadia (which went into administration the previous day) and JD Sports over a potential rescue, Debenhams announced it was going into liquidation, putting 12,000 jobs in 124 UK stores at risk unless the administrators could find buyers for all or parts of the business. With the company in administration and on the verge of liquidation, on 6 December 2020, Mike Ashley's Frasers Group was reported to be in talks to acquire Debenhams, though it was later reported that Ashley was mainly interested in using empty Debenhams stores to expand his other chains, including House of Fraser, Sports Direct and Flannels; taking 'vacant possession' would avoid redundancy costs for existing staff.
On 13 January 2021, Debenhams announced it would permanently shut six stores in England due to the COVID-19 lockdown. They included the flagship Oxford Street store in London, plus those in Worcester, Weymouth, Staines, Harrogate and Portsmouth; the move involved 320 job losses.
On 25 January 2021, it was announced that Boohoo had bought the Debenhams brand and website for £55m, but did not retain any of the remaining 118 stores, meaning the loss of up to 12,000 jobs. Boohoo relaunched the website as Debenhams.com in April that year. On 5 May 2021, the liquidator announced that all remaining UK stores would close on 15 May 2021, marking the end of Debenhams as a department store retailer in the UK after 243 years. Despite the closure in the UK, Debenhams stores in Middle East countries continued to operate for a few years. However, Debenhams closed its stores in Middle East countries in 2025.
From Wikipedia’s article on Debenhams, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4