SuperGroup

SuperGroup
Public
Traded as LSE: SGP
Industry Retail
Founded 1985
Headquarters Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK
Key people
 Peter Bamford, Chairman
Euan Sutherland, CEO
Products Clothing
Revenue £430.9 million (2014)[1]
£61.5 million (2014)[1]
Profit £27.8 million (2014)[1]
Website www.supergroup.co.uk

SuperGroup plc is a British international branded clothing company, and owner of the Superdry label. Superdry products combine vintage Americana styling with Japanese inspired graphics. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange as a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.[2]

History

Superdry fashion was established by Ian Hibbs and Julian Dunkerton in Cheltenham in 1985, at which time it was trading as "Cult Clothing".[3][4] It expanded during the 1990s and established stores in a number of UK university towns and cities, from Oxford and Cambridge to Edinburgh and Belfast. It opened its first store under the Superdry name in Covent Garden in London in 2004.[5]

Flag over the Regent Street Superdry Store in London

Under Theo Karpathios, a nationwide then global expansion of Superdry took place, with stores opening in major towns and cities all over the UK, the majority in university cities. As of 2012 the brand is sold in over 40 countries across Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, Australia and Asia.

The business floated on the London Stock Exchange in March 2010.[6] Dunkerton appeared in the Sunday Times Rich List 2010, and is said to be worth an estimated £180m.[7]

The company issued a profits warning and placed its store opening plans under review in February 2012; the share price quickly dropped by 18%.[8]

On 22 October 2014, it was announced that Dunkerton stepped down as CEO of Superdry and has been replaced by Euan Sutherland the ex-Ceo of the Co-operative.[9]

Image

Superdry does not overtly advertise and does not actively pursue celebrity endorsement, but a Brad leather jacket worn by football player David Beckham sold 70,000 from 2007 to mid-2009, becoming a best-seller for the company.[10][11]

The company's products include frequently meaningless excerpts of Japanese text, inspired by the common Japanese practise of placing decorative English text on items to increase their fashionability and appeal, a phenomenon known as Engrish. The company explained to a Japanese television crew in 2011 that they deliberately use simple machine translation to generate Japanese text, and that they are aware that the texts often have no meaning.[12] The brand logo - phonetically "Kyokudo kansou (shinasai)" - literally translates as "Maximum dry (please do)", the text in brackets being due to the translation software used offering alternatives depending on whether dry is intended as a noun (e.g., super dryness) or an imperative, (e.g., dry this shirt out).[13]

Notes

    References

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Annual Report 2014". SuperGroup. Retrieved 3 April 2015.
    2. ↑ "Superdry". Unmissable Japan. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
    3. ↑ "SuperGroup has super first quarter after implementation of new growth strategy". Retail Gazette. 2014-09-05. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
    4. ↑ "Cheltenham staff to become millionaires overnight". South West Business. 17 November 2009.
    5. ↑ "Fashion retailer aims to build on the opening of its biggest UK store". Property Week. November 2009.(registration required)
    6. ↑ Investors Snap Up Superdry Owner's Shares Sky News, 23 March 2010
    7. ↑ Sunday Times Rich List: Who's up? This is money, 26 April 2010
    8. ↑ Simon Bowers. "SuperGroup issues profits warning after Superdry's tough January". the Guardian. Retrieved 3 April 2015.
    9. ↑ "Superdry founder replaced as CEO role by ex-Co-op boss". BBC News. 22 October 2014.
    10. ↑ Guardian (May 28, 2009), "David Beckham jacket tussle ends with rap on the knuckles for Primark", The Guardian (London), retrieved 2009-08-10
    11. ↑ Daily Mail (May 30, 2009), Primark settle Beckham leather jacket tussle with Brit designers Superdry, London, retrieved 2009-08-10
    12. ↑ "Superdry: Popular UK Fashion Brand Uses Gibberish Japanese". Japan Probe. Retrieved 1 October 2014.
    13. ↑ Wells, John. "Superdry". John Wells' Phonetics Blog.

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Superdry.