Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
The Sunday Times has reported that all may not be well with high street housewares and hardware retailer Robert Dyas.
It seems that Dyas has recently re-structured its debt with Lloyds TSB in order to improve cash flow after it struggled to keep up with loan repayments last month.
The company was taken over in 2004 by Change Capital, made up of former Marks & Spencer chairman Luc Vandevelde and former M&S ceo and head of B&Q Roger Holmes. At the time, the pair announced an ambitious expansion plan, aiming to double the number of stores from 75 to 150, and borrowed the money to make it happen.
However, despite a significant number of openings since then – as of July this year it had 95 stores, 103 if you include concessions – The company is nowhere near meeting its original target.
Interestingly, the Robert Dyas website has shied away from the 150 figure, instead quoting a more conservative figure of 120. However, this does not appear to have been updated for some time as the site states, “our aim is to have 120 Robert Dyas stores by 2007.”
Keep a look out for more on this story, as it happens, on HousewaresLive.net.
