B&M Retail Ltd

Private company limited by shares

A private company limited by shares, usually called a private limited company , is a type of company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales, Scotland, that of certain Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland...

(also known as B&M Bargains and the larger B&M Homestore) is a retail chain

Chain store

Chain stores are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. These characteristics also apply to chain restaurants and some service-oriented chain businesses. In retail, dining and many service categories, chain businesses...

 of discount store

Discount store

A discount store is a type of department store, which sells products at prices lower than those asked by traditional retail outlets. Most discount department stores offer a wide assortment of goods; others specialize in such merchandise as jewelry, electronic equipment, or electrical appliances...

s operating in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 since 1976.

Based in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, in North West England

North West England

North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...

, the company has moved from being a regional retailer into an operator with a more-national base.

History

It was purchased by brothers Simon and Bobby Arora from private-equity

Private equity

Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....

 firm Phildrew Ventures in 2005, at which time the company had twenty-one stores and an annual revenue

Revenue

In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....

 of £65 million.Younger brother Robin Arora joined the business in the summer of 2008.

Growth

It saw significant growth in 2006 by acquiring the Glyn Webb chain of do-it-yourself

Do it yourself

Do it yourself is a term used to describe building, modifying, or repairing of something without the aid of experts or professionals...

 (DIY) stores and converting them into its B&M Homestore format. The company also acquired a number of former Kwik Save

Kwik Save

Kwik Save was a discount supermarket chain in the United Kingdom until 2007. Its stores were small to medium sized high street supermarkets, mainly located in areas with below average incomes...

, Woolworths

Woolworths Group

Woolworths Group plc was a listed British company that owned the high-street retail chain, Woolworths, as well as other brands such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK and book and resource distributor Bertram Books...

 and Au-Naturalle stores within its operational regions. It has over 135 stores and is looking for further gradual expansion, such as committing to increase its store numbers to 400 across the UK.. It has also bought some Focus DIY stores in May 2011, to be converted to the B&M Homestore format.

Customer base

More than half of the company's shoppers are over age thirty. As of June 2009, it was attracting, on average, 1.25 million customers per week into its stores.

Financial performance

The company saw a sharp increase in sales and profit during the late-2000s economic downturn.

Week ending	Revenue Revenue In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover.... (£ million)	Gross profit Gross profit In accounting, gross profit or sales profit is the difference between revenue and the cost of making a product or providing a service, before deducting overhead, payroll, taxation, and interest payments... (£ million)	Pre-tax profit Net profit Net profit or net revenue is a measure of the profitability of a venture after accounting for all costs. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 91 percent responded that they found the "net profit" metric very useful... (£ million)	Retained profit (£ million)
31 December 2009	426.6		33.8	24.5
31 December 2008	255.9		14.2
31 December 2007	147.0		9.9
31 December 2006	78.0
2005	65.0
28 February 2004	69.7		-0.3
2003	64.6		1.2

Press comment — The Sunday Times Top Track

It was listed by The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

Fast Track as one of the 100-fastest-growing private companies in the UK. This follows a ranking, earlier that year, in the paper's Top Track, a listing of the largest 100 mid-sized private companies in the UK.

External links

• bmstores.co.uk, company's official website