T J Hughes
Encyclopedia
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...
discount department store brand. As an individual chain of shops T J Hughes emerged 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 1925 and continued to trade until entering liquidation in 2011. However a handful of shops have continued to trade under the T J Hughes banner after rights to the name, as well as these individual stores, were purchased by Lewis's
Lewis's
Lewis's was a large department store in Liverpool city centre. It was formerly the flagship of a chain of department stores under the Lewis's name, that operated from 1856 to 1991, when the company went into administration. Several stores in the chain were bought by the company Owen Owen and...
.
History
Thomas J Hughes set up a small shop on Liverpool's London Road. The store had a few assistants and Thomas J Hughes was the main shopkeeper, overseeing everything within the business. In 1925 the large department store group Owen OwenOwen Owen
Owen Owen was a Liverpool-based operator of department stores in the United Kingdom.- The man :Owen Owen was born in October 1847 and died on Easter Sunday in 1910 at the age of 62....
saw the need to move out of their Audbrey House site on London Road into the new centre of Liverpool at Clayton Square. The building was put up unsuccessfully for sale. The then-chairman of Owen Owen, Duncan Norman, went to see the T J Hughes shop.
Norman was so impressed that he agreed to let Hughes run and expand his business in Audbrey House for part-ownership of the business under Owen Owen. T J Hughes then became a department store. The business was expanded by Owen Owen until being sold in the 1980s. Owen Owen later went on to purchase Lewis's
Lewis's
Lewis's was a large department store in Liverpool city centre. It was formerly the flagship of a chain of department stores under the Lewis's name, that operated from 1856 to 1991, when the company went into administration. Several stores in the chain were bought by the company Owen Owen and...
, another Liverpool department store. The company floated on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
in 1992. It was later acquired by JJB Sports
JJB Sports
JJB Sports plc is a United Kingdom sports retailer. It currently operates 251 stores in the UK and Ireland.- History :The sportshop chain was founded in 1971, when ex-footballer Dave Whelan acquired a single sports shop in Wigan. The original store was established by JJ Broughton in the early...
in 2000 for £42 million, ahead of a £56 million buyout
Buyout
A buyout, in finance, is an investment transaction by which the ownership equity of a company, or a majority share of the stock of the company is acquired. The acquiror thereby "buys out" control of the target company....
backed by PPM Capital in 2002.
After several years of static store numbers, expansion picked up again with three new outlets opened during 2009-10 and a further four opened in the first ten months of 2010-11. A number of the openings were in locations left vacant by 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...
. TJ Hughes refuted press speculation that it was looking to develop a 200-strong chain.
TJ Hughes was sold to Endless, a turnaround specialist, for an undisclosed sum in 2011, the 13th company in Endless' portfolio. Endless bought TJ Hughes from Silverfleet Capital, which had controlled the firm since 2003. The sale followed reports that TJ Hughes had been hit by the withdrawal of credit insurance for its suppliers after a battle to secure working capital. TJ Hughes had grown by around 20 stores since its acquisition by Silverfleet Capital in 2003.
On Monday 27 June 2011, TJ Hughes Limited announced that it intended to go into administration. TJ Hughes officially entered administration on Thursday 30 June 2011 with Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
appointed as administrators putting 4000 jobs at risk. The company launched a closing down sale, with "1000's of items reduced" in a bid to reduce stock levels.
Six of the 57 TJ Hughes stores were bought out of Administration by Lewis's
Lewis's
Lewis's was a large department store in Liverpool city centre. It was formerly the flagship of a chain of department stores under the Lewis's name, that operated from 1856 to 1991, when the company went into administration. Several stores in the chain were bought by the company Owen Owen and...
Home Retail Ltd (Part of the Benross Group). The remaining six stores will continue to trade under the TJ Hughes brand name. The company's online story relaunched in October 2011. The Benross group owner Anil Juneja hopes to bring the brand back to its former glory.
Sales strategy
In December 2005, T J Hughes launched an online store through ebayEBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, with ebay claiming that the retailer was the first in the UK to sell its main products through the auction site. The store launched with 110 lines including DVD players, digital cameras and perfumes. T J Hughes said its eBay shop represented an opportunity to increase sales and brand awareness.
One of the retailer's advertising tactics was to feature relatives of famous celebrities in their advertisements. For example, they used Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
player Wayne Rooney
Wayne Rooney
Wayne Mark Rooney is an English footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Manchester United and the England national team...
's brother Graeme Rooney as part of an advertising campaign. During 2007 the company unveiled its largest advertising campaign to date. This featured celebrities’ family members, with recruits to the campaign including Carol Vorderman’s mother, Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Ross may refer to:* Jonathan Ross , English television and radio personality* Jonathan Ross , United States Senator, Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court* Jonathon Ross , former Australian rules footballer...
’s mother, Robbie Williams’ father and Wayne Rooney
Wayne Rooney
Wayne Mark Rooney is an English footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Manchester United and the England national team...
’s brother. The aim of the somewhat unusual series of ads was apparently to eschew passing on the costs of celebrity endorsement to customers which TJ Hughes claims is the case for a number of its competitors.
Online
TJ Hughes was a late runner in the e-commerce era, establishing an information website for investors and customers in 1999/2000. Although a new site was launched in 2004 this continued to offer only basic information such as current offers and store locations. In spite of this, the company reported that this site received some 17,000 hits a month, which prompted them to look at the introduction of e-commerce. This was introduced on a trial basis in the run-up to Christmas 2005 and offered 150 seasonal gifts and homewares lines. An encouraging performance resulted in the trial being extended, with the company subsequently increasing the range of merchandise offered onlineONLINE
ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....
, and by 2011 the company offered an extensive range of products on its website. The TJ Hughes website is current ranked 108,004 worldwide and 5,237 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...
according to Alexa.
Financial success
TJ Hughes have seen gross profitGross 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...
s soar almost 50% a year, from £3.6m in 2003, increasing to £7.9m in 2004 with an impressive jump to £12m in 2006. Throughout 2007, TJ Hughes's pre-tax profits were £5.1 million in the year to January 26, up from £1.2 million the year before. Operating profit soared 299 per cent to £2.9 million.
Its most recent accounts, for the year to January, 2010, showed pre-tax profits increased by more than £1.5m to £6.8m. That was achieved on sales of £266.7m, an annual
Annual
Annual or yearly is a word often used to describe something that happens once a year. Circannual describes events that take place over the course of one year and repeat year after year."Annual" may be an abbreviation for:*Yearbook*Annual plant...
ised rise of 4%. Although the last full financial year before Ms Tennant was appointed, to January, 2007, showed pre-tax profits of £1.2m, they rose to £5.1m in the year to January, 2008. This was followed by profits of £5.3m the following year.
Competition
TJ Hughes believes that it holds a unique position as the only department store group on the high street offering discount fashion and homewares. Competition has nevertheless continued to rise, perhaps underlined by the more aggressive expansion of TK Maxx of late, both in out-of town locations where TJ Hughes has also expanded its presence from 2005 onwards, but increasingly in town centres as well. The demise of WoolworthsWoolworths 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...
has certainly created significant opportunities as far as homewares is concerned, although other mixed goods discounters such as B&M and Wilkinson
Wilkinson
-Places:In the United States:* Wilkinson, Indiana, a town in Hancock County* Wilkinson, Wisconsin, a town in Rusk County* Wilkinson County, Georgia* Wilkinson County, Mississippi* Wilkinson Heights, South Carolina* Wilkinson Station, North Carolina...
, which have some overlap in terms of product offer, have also been expanding rapidly in a bid to gain some of this market share both on the high street and increasingly in out-of-town locations. This is believed to be part of the reason as to why TJ Hughes entered administration.
Administration
It is understood TJ Hughes needed a major cash injection to see it through to the autumn. Endless, the parent company of TJ Hughes, could not provide the cash despite being a turn-around investor, having made a loss of £10 million in the year ending January 2011. TJ Hughes entering administration had meant it has put 4000 jobs at risk. Ernst & YoungErnst & Young
Ernst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
have said they will try and save as many jobs as possible but not all may be saved.
There have also been reports of a number of prospective buyers, including Primark
Primark
Primark is a clothing retailer, operating over 223 stores in Ireland , the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Belgium...
. Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
said it hoped to sell the company as a going concern, saying it was "very much business as usual" but added that it could be difficult to sell all of the stores owing to the previous trading history of TJ Hughes. The news came three days after Jane Norman
Jane Norman
Jane Norman is an English clothing company, selling clothing aimed at women. In early 2007, Jane Norman reported a 45% rise in profits over 2006, and released plans to open 100 more stores around the country, having already almost doubled their number from the year before, to 116.The company was...
, the womens-wear chain, went into administration with a number of other retailers going into administration.
- Thursday 7 July 2011: GA EuropeGordon Brothers GroupGordon Brothers Group, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, is a liquidation firm that was founded in 1903 by Jacob Bernard, Louis and Joseph Gordon....
acquired Endless’ secured debt due from TJ Hughes and will work with administrators Ernst & YoungErnst & YoungErnst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
to liquidate stock from the retail chain’s 57 stores.
- Friday 22 July 2011: TJ Hughes administrators Ernst & YoungErnst & YoungErnst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
announced the company's Liverpool distribution centre was to close, making 116 employees redundant.
- Monday 1 August 2011: the TJ Hughes flagship store in Liverpool was sold to Speke-based (Benross Group), who also bought 3 other stores in EastbourneEastbourneEastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...
, GlasgowGlasgowGlasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
and SheffieldSheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, saving 442 jobs. Lewis Home Retail also bought the brand name and website.
- Thursday 4 August 2011: Ernst & YoungErnst & YoungErnst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
announced the closure of 22 TJ Hughes stores throughout the United Kingdom, losing 1000 jobs. Store closures will begin on Wednesday 10th August, with Shrewsbury closing its doors, with more stores to follow over the coming days.
- Tuesday 20th August 2011: Saw Ernst & YoungErnst & YoungErnst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
announce the remaining TJ Hughes store will close their doors on Wednesday 31st August 2011, apart from the 6 stores bought by Lewis'sLewis'sLewis's was a large department store in Liverpool city centre. It was formerly the flagship of a chain of department stores under the Lewis's name, that operated from 1856 to 1991, when the company went into administration. Several stores in the chain were bought by the company Owen Owen and...
Home Retail Ltd. (Part of the Benross Group). They also bought the Brand name and the remaining 6 stores will continue to trade as TJ Hughes.