| Former type | Home Retail |
|---|---|
| Successor | Homebase |
| Founded | 1972 |
| Defunct | 1999 |
| Headquarters | Holborn, London, United Kingdom |
Texas Homecare was a chain of DIY stores in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, that operated from 1972 until 1999.
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Texas Homecare was established in 1972 by Manny, Sydney and Gerald Fogel, who had previously founded the high street specialist paint and wallpaper chain Home Charm. Taking their lead from America, they revolutionised the UK DIY market, with the introduction of the 'DIY shed' style outlet. Mervyn Fogel, Co-founder and Managing Director for over 25 years had a vision of turning the small family business into a DIY retail empire. Texas specialised in higher volume, lower margin DIY products. The company had been adversely affected by a recession and depressed housing market.
With its acquisition, Homebase hoped to hold around 10% of the total DIY market in the UK. In May 1995 it was announced that only 26 Texas stores were to close, with limited redundancies. Sainsbury's found that full conversion to the Homebase format was an investment worth making and allowed £50 million for the task.
These stores were rebranded and redesigned to the Homebase format, the first to be converted being in Longwell Green in Bristol in February 1996. A few other stores were sold off to other retailers; including the Merry Hill store in the West Midlands, which closed in 1995 and was split between PC World and Currys.
The last 60 Texas stores were converted to Homebase in 1999 and the Texas name vanished from high streets, shopping malls and retail parks.
In its early years Texas was famous for its TV advertising sign-off: 'Texas - THE BIG ONE!' In later years Texas used a fictional character called 'Texas Tom' in its advertising. During the early 1990s, this campaign was altered slightly to refer to Tom's place: "Only at Tom's place!"