Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Anthony Richards has this week joined the board of Beales as its new trading director.
Richards has been with the department store group since July, acting as a consultant after the retailer acquired 19 Westgate department stores from Anglia Regional Co-operative Society in May.
The £7.5m deal saw the group more than double its estate to 32 stores, but pushed the chain into making a £1.2m loss in the first half of its year to April 30. Even without the acquisition costs, the retailer said profit would have dropped by some 89%.
In what it called a “disappointing performance”, like-for-like sales in the half were down 9.2%.
