Dunn & Co.

Dunn & Co. was a well known British chain of menswear retailers.

History

Dunn & Co. was founded in 1886 by George Arthur Dunn, a Quaker, who started by selling hats on the streets on Birmingham. Forty years later he had 200 hat shops and as many franchises in other stores. These gradually developed into a string of high street stores specialising in formal wear, especially suits, blazers and flannels.

The group trading started showing problems in 1991, with nearly 40 shops being sold to Hodges, a private Welsh group which kept the Dunn & Co. name going. In 1994 a majority stake was sold to venture capitalists CinVen, who appointed Anthony Phillips and Jim Bellingham to run the chain.

Demise

In its final year of trading, 1996, Dunn & Co. had 130 shops and 429 staff, with a head office in Swansea employing a further 75 workers.

It was loosing £1m/year on sales of £25m/year, and when its debts reached £6.4m (with £4m owed to unsecured creditors), CinVen, who by then owned 86 per cent of the company, called in the receivers KPMG, on 19 December 1996^[1]

References

1. ^ Dunn & Co calls in the receivers; Published 1996-12-20; Retrieved 2011-11-18; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/dunn--co-calls-in-the-receivers-1315374.html