| Type | Subsidiary of Home Retail Group |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail Home improvement |
| Founded | 1979 (as Sainsbury's Homebase) |
| Headquarters | Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire Wallington, London |
| Key people | Paul Loft, Managing Director Ian Jones, Retail Operations & Distribution Director David Robinson, Commercial Director Bill Adams, Finance Director Sonia Astill, HR Director Jo Kenrick, Marketing & Strategy Director[1] |
| Products | DIY Tools Paint & Decor Furniture Homewares Outdoor Living Kitchens Bathrooms Gardening |
| Revenue | £1.57bn (2009-2010) |
| Parent | Home Retail Group |
| Website | www.homebase.co.uk |
Homebase is a British home improvement store and garden centre, with 350 stores across the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It is well known by its green and orange colour scheme. Together with its sister company Argos (with 750 stores), it forms part of Home Retail Group. Homebase recorded sales figures of £1.57 billion pounds for the last financial year (2009-2010). Homebase made a profit of £41.2 million pounds for the year 2009-2010.
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Homebase was founded by Sainsbury's supermarket chain and Belgian retailer GB-Inno-BM in 1979 as Sainsbury's Homebase, to bring supermarket-style layout to the British DIY market. Its first store was in Croydon, opening on the Purley Way on 3 March 1981.
Homebase tripled in size in 1995 when it bought rival store group Texas Homecare from the Ladbroke Group plc. These stores were rebranded and converted to the Homebase format, beginning with the Longwell Green store in Bristol in February 1996, with the process being completed by 1999. In October 1999 Sainsbury's bought Hampden Group plc, the franchisee of 10 Homebase stores across Ireland.
Sainsbury's sold the Homebase chain in December 2000 in a two-fold deal worth £969 million. Sales of the chain of stores to venture capitalist Schroder Ventures[2] generated £750 million and sale of 28 development sites, which had been earmarked for future Homebase stores, were sold for £219 million to rival B&Q's parent company, Kingfisher plc. At the time, the chain had 13% of the UK market, behind B&Q and Focus Do It All.
Homebase was later sold on to GUS plc (formerly Great Universal Stores plc) in November 2002 for £900 million, where it formed part of the Argos Retail Group. On 10 October 2006, GUS completed a demerger between its two businesses Experian and ARG. ARG was renamed as the Home Retail Group, as part of which Homebase now operates.
In early October 2007 it was announced that Home Retail Group, had signed a contract for the purchase of 27 leasehold properties from Focus DIY. The purchase price paid was £40 million in cash. The properties were transferred over the period up to 31 December 2007 and were then re-fitted to the Homebase fascia over the course of several months. No other infrastructure and no merchandise stock were acquired as part of the transaction, although staff in these Focus stores transferred across to Homebase.
Early in its history, Homebase used its Sainsbury's experience to move into using central warehouses from which to deliver its stock. By the 1990s it was receiving the vast majority of its stock into central warehouses, then delivering it to stores. Homebase still receives a few direct deliveries to its stores from manufacturers and vendors.
From May 2009 Homebase discontinued its own loyalty program, the Spend & Save Card and replaced it with the Nectar loyalty card scheme, the UK's largest retail loyalty card. The Spend & Save card had been used by Homebase since 1982, and was believed to be one of the first store loyalty cards in the world.
Homebase allows customers to collect and redeem points within its stores, becoming the first national DIY retailer to participate in this way. Although competitors B&Q also have a system for processing Nectar points, this is only available on their website, and even then, points may only be spent, not collected.[3]
During the late 1990s early 2000s, Homebase used former Men Behaving Badly couple Neil Morrissey and Leslie Ash as a couple. They were used for several years. From 2006-2009 Homebase used the song "Love Machine" by Girls Aloud in their TV Adverts. From March 2009 "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John featuring Victoria Bergsman is used, 2009- 2010 saw the transformation of Carlisle railway station one of the most expensive adverts Homebase has produced to date.
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