Up-to-date coverage of the latest events in UK retail.
French Connection activist investor buys Moss Bros stake
Gatemore Capital Management has bought a 10% stake in men’s formalwear retailer Moss Bros.
Gatemore previously owned an 8% stake in French Connection, which it used in an attempt to agitate for changes to management.
There is an expectation that it may adopt similar tactics at Moss Bros, which reported a £1.7m pre-tax loss for its latest full year.
Debenhams aims to shrink stores to survive
Debenhams hopes to shrink around a third of its surviving estate of department stores in a bid to stave off online competition and survive.
As part of the embattled department store chain’s survival plan, Debenhams plans to reduce the size of up to 30 sites, alongside closing some 50 stores over the next few years, according to the Mail on Sunday.
Chair of the retailer Sir Terry Duddy said discussions had already begun with some landlords and that the “ideal size” for a Debenhams would depend on the size of a town but is around 100,000 sq ft – half the size of the chain’s largest stores.
“Of the 100 stores, we will be having conversations about what would be the right size for that location, so in some cases we need to be on three floors rather than five,” he said.
Clubcard creators awarded OBEs
The co-founders of global insights business Dunnhumby and creators of the Clubcard have been awarded OBEs in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Starcount boss Edwina Dunn and chief data scientist Clive Humby have both been awarded OBEs for services to data and business in the UK. The two founded dunhumby in 1989 and were responsible for the creation of the Clubcard for Tesco - the first mass customisation loyalty programme in the world.
Dunn and Humby currently run data science consultancy Starcount, which works with Marks & Spencer, Holland & Barrett and Jaguar.