Marks and Spencer p. Marks and Spencer also owns the Brooks Brothers chain of men's clothing stores, which consists of more than units in the United States and Japan, and the store, New Jersey-based Kings Super Markets grocery store chain. The fast-growing Marks and Spencer Financial Services unit offers its customers credit cards, personal loans, life insurance, and savings, investment, and pension plans.
About 17 percent of Marks and Spencer's revenues are generated outside the United States. Ten years earlier, Marks, a peddler, had opened his first stall on a trestle table in Leeds market, selling a range of cheap goods all priced at one penny, including hair pins, dolly dyes, and black lead; he is said to have paid 18 pence for the privilege. Tom Spencer, cashier for Leeds textile wholesaler Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst, was an experienced bookkeeper, and Dewhirst had helped Marks by teaching him English and providing him with small loans.
By Marks had moved house from Leeds and, after living in Wigan, had settled in Manchester, where he acquired a shop and a home. He also had opened market stalls--bazaars, he called them--in several towns, including Warrington, Bolton, and Birkenhead. The new partnership immediately looked further afield to Birmingham and Newcastle and in to London. Manchester, however, remained the headquarters, and the first Marks and Spencer warehouse was opened there in Upon Marks's sudden death in , his executor, William Chapman, a self-made handkerchief manufacturer, became the dominating force in the business.
In each of the first Marks and Spencer bazaars the slogan had been "Don't ask the price, it's a penny," but this selling policy soon changed. It was a landmark date in when a new store in a shopping arcade was opened in Leeds not far from Marks's first market trestle table.
Marks's son Simon acquired his first allocation of shares in April , eight months before his father's death, and from the start he was determined to acquire full control over what he conceived of as a family business. It was not until , however, that he ousted Chapman and became chairman. In addition, it had successfully braved World War I. By then there were branch stores, only ten of them in market halls. No fewer than 56 were in the London area. Some of them had been bought in clusters from existing chains.
Simon Marks, a man of intelligence and drive, in effect entered into his own partnership in when his close friend Israel Sieff, keenly aware of world trends both in politics and in science, joined the board after having been blocked previously by Chapman. In Marks won a lawsuit against Chapman, and in June Chapman resigned. The firm's initials M and S now stood symbolically for Marks and Sieff. The two friends had first met in Manchester, and each was to marry the other's sister.
If their talents were complementary, their vision was shared, and it was a vision that extended far beyond the confines of the business.
Succession seemed natural in , when on Simon's death, Israel became chairman, to be succeeded in by his son Marcus, who like Simon Marks and Israel, became a peer. In the company, needing an injection of cash, had been converted into a public company to raise new capital, fully supported by the Prudential Assurance Company, which played a key role in the negotiations.
The new A shares issued then carried no voting rights. Indeed, there was to be a sharp distinction between management and ownership until , when Israel Sieff concluded that the granting of voting rights was by then "in line with the enlightened policy which governs our business. Marks hoped in that in the future there would be "an ample margin of working capital" for management to promote a substantial development program that included the purchase of properties as well as store building, and the hope was fulfilled.
Already by approximately four-fifths of the new company's assets consisted of freehold and leasehold properties, and between a year of international depression--and no fewer than new stores were built or rebuilt, all on inner-city sites. On the eve of World War II, Marks placed more emphasis on replacement of old premises by new than on an increase in the number of stores in itself. Store design had been transformed. Customers were to be attracted into them, to look around even when they did not buy.
The business philosophy that Marks and Sieff shared was associated with social change even in years of economic depression. As Marks put it in , "Goods and services once regarded as luxuries have become conventional comforts and are now almost decreed necessities. A fundamental change in people's habits has been brought about. Millions are enjoying a substantially higher standard of living.
To this substantial rise in the standard of living our company claims to have made a definite contribution. It involves constant alertness and study of the changing habits, desires and tastes of the consumer. In the latter year there were stores and more than 17, employees. Adderley founded Dunelm on a Leicester market stall with his wife Jean in after leaving his job as manager of Woolworths in the city, eventually floating the business on the stock exchange.
Adderley, who has avoided the public spotlight, was not available to comment but sources close to the family suggested he had merely spotted an investment opportunity and taken it. It is due to report its half-year figures next week.
Stuart B. Chief Operating Officer. Nick Folland. Group General Counsel, Company Secretary. New Stories. The introduction of full customs checks between Britain and Northern Ireland risks becoming "incendiary" when prices rise and favourite products fail to get through, one of the country's biggest retailers said.
Quote and financial data from Refinitiv. Fund performance data provided by Lipper. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. Latest Trade Change 4. Volume 8,, Today's Range Pricing Previous Close. Today's High.
0コメント