The Original Factory Shop in the News
Original Factory Shop is reviving forgotten high streets of Britain
The Original Factory Shop, a ‘local department store,’ is stepping into the breach in small towns and has big plans
The Original Factory Shop expects to create up to 1,000 jobs this year as the non-food convenience retailer steps up its store opening programme.
The business, which employs 2,100 people across 134 stores and at its head office in Burnley, Lancashire, expects to open about 35 stores during this financial year.
Of these, six will open before the end of the month, while the company, owned by Duke Street Capital, the private equity firm, also plans to almost double the size of its warehouse facilities in order to service expected demand.
Angela Spindler, chief executive of The Original Factory Shop, said that the business — which sells men’s, women’s and children’s fashions as well as homewares, electricals and toiletries — was eventually eyeing about 500 stores nationwide.
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She told The Times: “We are confident we will have a chain of 500 stores by 2020. We are what I would describe as a low-price local department store, which is a relatively new category, and the kind of places we like to trade from are what you might call the forgotten high streets of Britain.
“Ideally, these are locations where the population is less than 20,000 — they are small towns, which tends to go hand in hand with fairly small levels of competition, or on the edges of larger towns. Having a food retailer near by helps.
“Our customers like to visit very frequently, like a convenience store. A good example is Campbeltown in Argyll. It is a long drive for people to go and access branded clothing, jewellery and cosmetics.
“We are pretty much evenly distributed across the country — we go from Scotland right down to Cornwall, as well as Northern Ireland, the Midlands and East Anglia. The only place you won’t find us is in the big cities. Having said that, we have just opened our first store inside the M25, in Debden in Essex, which is trading brilliantly.”
Ms Spindler said that, of the new stores, about eight would be former Woolworths sites. However, she added, the rest would probably be identified on an individual basis: “There are some sites currently available, such as those which were previously part of Ethel Austin, although they are too small for us. There’s also Au Naturel, although they are not really in the right location.
“What we have tended to do more is to identify sites that we can develop — in the past, we have opened in former bowling alleys, cinemas, stations and car dealerships. So we are not dependent on acquiring sites by picking them up from other retailers.”
She was speaking as The Original Factory Shop reported sales of £132 million for the year to March 28, an increase of 35 per cent on the same period a year earlier and up 7 per cent on a like-for-like basis, which strips out the impact of refurbishments and new store openings. Earnings before taxation, interest, depreciation and amortisation rose by 31 per cent to £14.7 million.
Ms Spindler said that it was the fifth consecutive year of double-digit profit growth and the second year running that ebitda had risen by more than 25 per cent. The company opened 30 new stores during the year, of which 22 were in former Woolworths outlets, creating 700 jobs. She added: “We are delighted with our performance last year. We have a financially strong business focused on achieving strong organic growth by adopting an aggressive store opening plan, funded by our strong cash-generation.
“No other UK retailer fits our model of being a national major non-food convenience retailer operating in local markets. Customers voted with their feet last year, as we expanded not only our store network in the year but also our brand and product offering.
“This is a business which has shown that it can continue to grow during both good times and during a recession. It never misses a beat.”
Ms Spindler, who joined the business in January last year, said that while The Original Factory Shop stocked well-known brands such as adidas, Ben Sherman, Morphy Richards, Silentnight and L’Oréal, she had been pleased by the way the company’s newly launched own brands Mimosa and Headland had traded during the year.
She added that there were no immediate plans for the business to float: “We are not really looking at exit plans because we have so many growth opportunities as we are.”
Original story
? The Original Factory Shop was established in 1969 as part of Peter Black’s — selling over-makes, which are surplus to the original order, and seconds made for Marks & Spencer Barclays Capital bought a 70 per cent stake for £18.5 million in 2004 and, in December 2007, Duke Street backed a £69 million management buyout
Graduating from Asda’s academy
Angela Spindler is another of a well-established cadre of executives in British business to have worked under Archie Norman, below, and Allan Leighton at Asda. Ms Spindler, whose early career was at Pedigree Pet Foods — owned by Mars, where Mr Leighton was previously a senior executive — and Cadbury Schweppes.
She joined Asda in 1997 and worked her way up the ranks, first as trading and marketing director and then from 2005 as global managing director of the George fashion label, where she signed personalities such as Andrew and Rachael Flintoff and Coleen McLoughlin as the “faces” of George.
Ms Spindler left Asda in August 2007 and resurfaced in February 2008 as managing director of Debenhams, the department store chain, where she was immediately tipped to succeed Rob Templeman as chief executive.
However, when it became apparent that Mr Templeman would not be leaving as early as anticipated, Ms Spindler moved on in November 2008 after nine months. She joined The Original Factory Shop just under three months later.
Ms Spindler said that she had been pleasantly surprised about many aspects of life at her latest berth: “I’ve always worked for bigger businesses. Here at The Original Factory Shop, I’ve a smaller team and probably a less well-known brand, but I have been surprised how much I have enjoyed it.”
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03 May 2010 by The Times
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