Dunnes Stores
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail (various) |
| Founded | 1944 in Cork City |
| Founder | Ben Dunne |
| Headquarters | Dublin, Ireland |
Key people | Frank Dunne (Managing Director) |
| Products | Groceries and textiles |
Number of employees | 18,000 |
Dunnes is a supermarket and clothing retail chain, that is based in Dublin, Ireland.
The chain primarily sells food, clothes and household wares. In addition to its main customer base in Ireland, the chain has operations in Great Britain and Spain. The format of the chain's stores include a grocery supermarket operating alongside a clothing/textiles store. The grocery operation only operates in Irish stores and some Northern Irish stores, although some limited grocery ranges can be found in the Spanish stores. However some stores contain only textiles, while some (more rarely) contain only a supermarket.
History
The chain was founded in 1944 in Cork by Ben Dunne as a clothing retailer. The food side of the business began in the 1960s. The company opened the first Irish out-of-town shopping centre at Cornelscourt, Co. Dublin, in 1966.
The company is particularly known for the lockout/strike of the retail workers union, who refused to handle goods sourced from South Africa, then under apartheid. Neither side would give way and the dispute only came to an end when the Irish Government made imports from South Africa illegal (this has since been lifted).
On 12 July 2007, the company opened a new flagship textiles-only store in Henry Street, Dublin. This store is branded simply as "DUNNES" on external signage rather than "Dunnes Stores", as is the company's store at Citywest, opened in September 2007. On 24 October 2007 Michael Heffernan confirmed that the company would be rebranding as simply "Dunnes". [1]
Ownership
The company is not publicly listed - instead it is controlled by a family-owned trust. It is not even a private limited company by shares, hence it does not have to file accounts. The younger Ben Dunne was, for a long time, in a senior position until a 1992 scandal involving drugs and prostitutes, which led to an internal feud which forced his withdrawal. Today two of his siblings, Frank Dunne and Margaret Heffernan, are in charge of the company.
The Dunne Family, who own the company are amongst the richest people in the island of Ireland. Margaret Heffernan, for example, is Ireland's Fifteenth richest woman with assets of €443 million according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2009.
The company is in the midst of changing over to the next generation of the Dunne family, both Margaret Heffernan and her brother Frank Dunne are giving their shares in phases to their children. Sharon McMahon, niece of Frank Dunne and Margaret Heffernan is also becoming a significant player, having bought out her brother's shares in the company. There have also been some senior director appointments from outside the family including Andrew Street from Boots and Eoin McGettigan from Musgraves.
In November 2008 there were reports that Dunnes was being bought out by Asda (a British supermarket chain itself owned by American chain Wal-Mart).[2] [3] [4]
Competition
Dunnes' main domestic competitors in the supermarket business are Tesco Ireland, SuperValu, Superquinn and most recently Lidl and sister company Aldi. In clothing, their rivals include Penneys, Marks and Spencer, Arnotts, and Debenhams Ireland. Dunnes concentrate more on clothes retail in the United Kingdom, meaning they do not generally compete directly with British Supermarkets.
References
- ^ The Irish Times 25 October 2007
- ^ http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS+FEATURES-qqqs=news-qqqid=37398-qqqx=1.asp "Secretive Dunnes fails to scotch buyout speculation" - Sunday Business Post
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
External links
| Main | |
|---|---|
| Convenience | |
| Regional | |
| Defunct | |
