Company Overview

With about 2,000 retail stores in the United Kingdom, London-based Arcadia Group is the country’s second-largest retailer. The company owns numerous retail chains, covering the men’s, women’s, youth, and outdoor clothing markets, and operates more than 300 franchised stores in 30 countries. Founded in 1904 as a single tailor shop in Chesterfield, England by Moshe David Osinsky, a Lithuanian Jew who renamed himself Montague Burton, the company became a favorite among the country’s burgeoning middle class for its affordable, quality men’s suits. By 1919, Arcadia operated 37 stores; within two decades, it had grown to more than 600. The company began diversifying its holdings in the 1970s, branching out into the high-end brand name market with its 1998 purchase of top men’s clothing retailer Wade-Smith. Arcadia cut some 300 jobs in 1999 to offset waning sales, but also made two more acquisitions that year. In June 1999, the company launched Zoom, an Internet shopping site. Then, in November 2001, Arcadia began the process of discussing a proposed £550 million takeover offer from Baugur, Iceland’s biggest retailer and a 20 percent Arcadia shareholder. In the end, Arcadia accepted a takeover bid of £770 million from Bhs retail chain owner Philip Green in September 2002. Two years later, Green sought tax relief by transferring the chain’s ownership over to his wife, Tina, a resident of the principality of Monaco. In 2005, Arcadia acquired rival Etam.