Bejam
Company type | Private |
---|---|
Gegründet | 1969 |
Defunct | 1989 |
Successor | Island |
Hauptsitz | Stanmore, England, United Kingdom |
Produkte | Groceries |
Bejam was a British frozen food supermarket chain founded by John Apthorp in 1969, based in Stanmore, London. The business grew to become the biggest frozen food retailer and largest seller of freezers and microwaves in Britain.[1] The business was purchased by smaller rival, Iceland in a hostile takeover in 1989.
History
The concept of selling only frozen foods was a novel idea in 1969. John Adthorp, worked for E. A. D. Apthorp, his family firm of potato merchants, who were bought out by the Ross Group in 1968. Adthorp did not like working within the larger organisation, so left and opened a single store in Edgware as Bejam Bulk Buying in November 1969 selling frozen foods.[2][3][4] The name, Bejam was an acronym for Brian, Eric, John and Milly and Marion, the names of the Apthorp family members.[5][6][3] At the time Britain was behind continental Europe in freezer ownership, but by 1973 it had grown to around 2 million homes.[2] By 1973, Bejam had expanded to 72 stores, not just selling frozen food but also freezers themselves, a pioneer in the marketplace, while in the same year it became listed on the London Stock Exchange.[7][8] The company had many subsidiaries supplying frozen food to the business, including the jointly owned Meatpak Hampshire.[9] Bejam would also buy 50% of Smeets Diepvries, B.V., a Netherlands wholesale distributor of frozen foods in 1973, eventually opening three Bejam stores in the Netherlands.[10] In 1974, the company opened a new jointly owned 3,300,000-square-foot (310,000 m2) cold store in Milton Keynes with the National Freight Corporation.[11]
The company grew very quickly during the 1970s, and by 1975 they had grown to 147 stores with 463,000-square-foot (43,000 m2) of sales space making £2.34 million of profit on £44.23 million turnover.[12] The appliances division joined up with Barclays Bank in 1976 to offer customers credit on fridges and freezers sold in store.[13] Bejam continued to grow, and in 1979 announced record profits of £6.04 million,[3] with interim profits in 1980 further growing to £4.1 million, with a share price of 59p.[14] The company diversified in 1979 by purchasing 38 restaurants from EMI for £4.78 million, mostly operating under Wimpy and Tennesse Pancake fascias, and announced plans to open a fast food chain called Trumps, with the first branch opening in Romford.[3][15][16] However, the fast food experiment failed, with 22 of the branches sold in 1980,[17] and in 1981 the business withdrew from the market with a write-down of £1.9 million. It didn't however affect the company's profits, with the company generating pre-tax profits of £9 million.[18]
Bejam bought the Victor Value chain of supermarkets from Tesco in 1986, and both Lowfreeze, the freezer shop brand of Scottish supermarket chain, Wm Low, and Wizard Wine in 1987.[19][20]
In January 1989, Bejam was bought by its rival Iceland, despite still being a success and being three times bigger than the Iceland chain. The shops were rebranded to carry the "Iceland" name.
See also
References
- ^ Brian Kenny, Edward C Lea (1984). Bejam. University of Huddersfield.
- ^ a b Laurence Don (1 January 1974). "The Kitchen Revolution: How Bejam makes Housewives Freezer Conscious". Retail and Distribution Management. 2 (1): 11–13. doi:10.1108/eb017764.
- ^ a b c d "Bejam comes in from the cold". The Financial Times. 12 October 1979. p. 8.
- ^ Lionel Faraday Gray (1975). "Bejam plc". Jane's Major Companies of Europe. McGraw-Hill. p. B-114. ISBN 978-0-354-00514-2.
- ^ Rodney Dale, Steve Puttick (1997). The Wordsworth Dictionary of Abbreviations and Acronyms. Wordsworth Editions. p. 18. ISBN 9781853263859.
- ^ Leslie Dunkling (1993). The Guinness Book of Names. Guinness. p. 210. ISBN 9780851125954.
- ^ "Bulk-buying leads to bulk-selling of shares". Workers Press. 28 June 1973. p. 11.
- ^ "International Frozen Foods". The Financial Times. 23 June 1976.
- ^ "Bejam seeks more 1 shop sites". The Financial Times. 24 August 1973.
- ^ "Bejam Group plc". Jane's Major Companies of Europe. S. Low, Marston & Company. 1976. p. B-90.
- ^ "Bejam refundings". The Times. 9 December 1974. p. 17.
- ^ "Rapid expansion of Bejam mitigates half-time setback". The Times. 23 March 1978. p. 26.
- ^ "CBI proposals to directors". The Financial Times. 25 June 1976. p. 1.
- ^ "Bejam. It may slow down". The Times. 20 March 1980. p. 29.
- ^ "Bejam acquires EMI restaurants for £4.8 million". The Financial Times. 2 June 1979. p. 20.
- ^ "Bejam pays £5 million for EMI restaurant chain". The Financial Times. 13 March 1979. p. 33.
- ^ "Bejam. It may slow down". The Times. 20 March 1980. p. 29.
- ^ "Bejam. Eating Humble Pie". The Times. 7 October 1981. p. 23.
- ^ "History - About". Majestic.co.uk. Archived from the original on 15 March 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
- ^ Sparks. L (1 October 1995). "Restructuring Scottish grocery retailing: the rise and demise of Shoprite and Wm Low". International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 23 (10): 28–36. doi:10.1108/09590559510102469.
Bibliography
- Adrian Room, Corporate Eponymy: A Biographical Dictionary of the Persons Behind the Names, Page 17, McFarland & Co, 1992, ISBN 0-89950-679-8
- Adrian Room, Dictionary of Trade Name Origins, Page 38, Routledge, 1982, ISBN 0-7102-0174-5
- David Boylan, Antony Head, Corporate Finance: Principles & Practice, Page 314, Pearson Education, 2007, ISBN 0-273-70644-6