Just who owns the British High Street?

12-08-2006

As I travel the length and breadth of Britain I often find myself in a British High Street somewhere full of clone stores. You know the ones I mean, they are in every high street across Great Britain. I have often wondered just how British our high street is today. I mean, with all the company take-overs you hear about you have to wonder if our high street is still British.

So I decided to do a little light research into who exactly owns these clone stores. Where are the owners or companies that own these stores actually based?

First off I discarded the obvious imports such as McDonald’s, Subway and Starbucks because we all know they are American. Then I tried to picture the various high streets I have wandered down over the last year and I made a note of all the store names I could remember. Once I had my list I hit the net in order to find out just exactly who owns our high street. And guess what? I was pleasantly surprised that it is still mainly British.

Here’s what I found (in the order that I wrote them down):

HMV & Waterstones - Owned by HMV Group, an international company based in the UK & Ireland.

Virgin Megastore - Owned by Richard Branson

W H Smith - Swindon based UK company

BHS - Owned by Philip Green Britain’s 4th richest man (along with Habitat, Mothercare, Topshop, Topman, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Miss Selfridge, Tammy)

M&S - is a British owned company

Clarks - is a British company based in Somerset

Next - is a British company based in Leicestershire

Debenhams - is owned by a private consortium made up of European and American companies

Halfords - owned by European private equity firm which also owns most of Debenhams and The AA and Kwik-Fit

River Island - English company ran by Bernard Lewis

Boots - merged with Alliance Unichem and are a UK company

Specsavers - UK company

Dolland & Atchison - British Company with a Royal Warrant (supplies spectacles to the Royal Family)

Café Nero - British coffee shop chain based in London

Costa - UK founded company owned by two Italian brothers

Argos - Owned by UK company GUS Plc which also owns Homebase

JJB Sports - UK company based in Wigan

Woolworths - owned by UK company Kingfisher Plc which also owns B&Q, Superdrug, Comet, MVC.

Millets & Blacks - UK company

Game - UK company formerly known as Electronics Boutique

The Body Shop - owned by French company L'Oreal

H Samuel - owned by British company Signet Group which also owns Ernest Jones. Formerly owned by Ratners who had to sell up due to a financial crisis.

Greggs - Newcastle based UK company which also owns Bakers Oven

John Lewis - UK retailer which also owns Waitrose

Clinton Cards - UK company

Primark - Owned by Associated British Foods a British multinational company

Ann Summers - owned by a private British Company who named it after the founders secretary

Monsoon & Accessorize - UK company owned by Peter Simon

Claire's - girls accessory shop owned by an American company

Jessops - Is owned by ABN AMRO the largest Netherlands bank