- Blacks Leisure Group
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"Millets" redirects here. For other uses, see millet (disambiguation).
Blacks Leisure Group 
Type Public Traded as LSE: BSLA Industry Camping and leisure Founded 1861 (Greenock) Headquarters Northampton, United Kingdom Area served UK Key people Peter W. Williams
(Interim Chairman)
Julia Reynolds
(Chief Executive)Products Camping, walking, skiing and mountaineering equipment Employees 1804 Website blacksleisure.co.uk Blacks Leisure Group plc of Northampton, UK owns British outdoor retailers Blacks, Millets and Free Spirit. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index.
Contents
Structure
It is based at Swan Valley, Northampton. This is off junction 15a of the M1 (A43/A5123 and Northampton services), next to the Grand Union Canal and about a mile north of Rothersthorpe[1] It is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index. It currently has 313 stores.[2]
Subsidiaries
- Blacks Outdoor Division Ltd
- The Outdoor Group Ltd
Group history
Blacks Leisure Group was formed in 1985. It has doggedly survived financial difficulties in 1986 and 2009. In September 1986 it, and its 280 employees and 44 stores, almost went into receivership. A £3.3 million offer came from the Sears Group who owned Millets, but this transaction was not completed. It received a cash injection from investors to keep it afloat the following month. It bought Miss Sam Holdings, a childrenswear company, in July 1987 for £45 million. At this time it was headed by Bernard Garbacz. In 1989 it moved its operations to Washington[which?] .
It bought the Outdoor Group, which included Millets and Free Spirit, in November 1999 for £51 million, having first offered £55 million. At the time Blacks had 42 stores and a 40% share in the Fila UK Ltd sportswear firm; it sold this share to the parent company in July 2000 for £12 million. In May 2002 it sold its sports division, 187 First Sport outlets, to JD Sports (John David Group) for £53 million[3] and bought 47 outlets of Famous Army Stores in February 2002. In July 2003 it bought the Just Add Water chain of 10 shops for £4.3 million. On November 2004 it bought 27 Outdoor outlets for £2.6 million from The Scout Association. Until 2006, it engaged in an expansion of its business by opening many new stores, especially on retail parks. This expansion was short-lived.
Financial troubles
In 2008/9 it made a loss of £6.8 million, which was a pre-tax loss of £14.4 million. Freespirit and O'Neill were not selling well, but the more well known stores were better. In early 2009 it had 12 O'Neill surf shops but later that year Blacks is thought to have entered talks with Ronald De Waal (owner of the O'Neill brand name) to try and arrange a deal with between O'Neill and Logo Group International based in the Netherlands to offload the stores. Sadly, a deal never materialised and the stores faced closure when Sandcity, the company who held the license to sell and distribute O'Neill in the UK was put into administration. Sandcity had been based in Washington, Tyne and Wear, which itself closed in May 2008, moving to the Northampton headquarters. The first UK based O'Neill store opened in December 1997 in Covent Garden Sandcity went into administration on 23 September 2009.[4] This had to happen when the bank (Lloyds) refused Blacks' offer to convert them into Blacks stores. The wholesale license of O'Neill in the UK was handed back to Logo Group International, based in the Netherlands at the same time.
In October 2009 89 stores where shut down as part of a restructuring, after the company went through a CVA which was supported by a huge majority of creditors. Before the closure it had 256 Millets, 116 Blacks and 32 Freespirit. By February 2010 it had 208 Millets, 92 Blacks and 13 Freespirit. The CVA was executed and Blacks exited a number of loss-making stores but not before a number of the stores classed as "loss making" underwent an extensive refurbishment program using around £6m of capital. The mostly costly of these stores was the Air.Land and Sea store operating out of Bluewater shopping centre in Kent [2]. After a costing an estimated £3m and branded "the first of many to open in the UK", the store was in operation for less than 12 months and closed as part of a CVA. Of all the stores refurbished, they were originally reported to be trading ahead of the rest of the estate. Unfortunately, several of the newly refurbished stores remained loss-making and were closed when a CVA was agreed. Of the refurbished stores, the newly refurbished blacks store at the ex freespirit site in Northampton was also closed.
On 23 November 2009, it reached an agreement with its creditors - landlords of its stores - which needed 75% backing. This saved the company from liquidation, with a period of great uncertainty from September to November. In the summer of 2009, camping was a popular option for many families who could no longer afford a more expensive holiday abroad though Blacks failed to capitalise on the estimated £1.2billion share of the UK market.
In early 2010, the company received a £26 million takeover offer from Sports Direct, which it fought off. Sports Direct owned around 30% of Blacks' shares. It was at this time that Blacks sold off its Mambo boardwear arm for an estimated £800,000 to New Zealand born Andrew Gerrie (CEO of Lush cosmetics).
Private equity funds, including the owner of rival Cotswold Outdoor, circle Blacks after it confirms early talks on a possible offer in late October 2010[5]
Millets
Millets, with over 200 stores, is the UK's largest travel and outdoor retailer. Its own brands that are sold within the Millets fascia are traditionally Eurohike, Peter Storm and Equator. ALS is another house brand that was only stocked under the Blacks fascia. Recently ALS has been found within Millets stores replacing Equator which has been mostly discontinued.
Millets was founded in 1893 by Mr J.M. Millet and had two stores in Southampton and Bristol. In 1978, the company moved to Northampton. In 1986, it formed Millets Leisure plc. This became the Outdoor Group in 1996 with 158 stores, which was bought by Blacks Leisure plc in 1999.
Blacks
Blacks has 90 UK stores, originally specialising in the serious walking and hiking kit. Recently they have diversified to including running clothing and more fashion based lines.
In the 1850s, Thomas Black went to Australia, prospecting for gold. He then went to Spanish Guinea in West Africa, where he worked for the London company Laughland and Brown as an agent, where he traded calico cotton fabric for ivory. The conditions were not good for his health so he returned to Scotland, setting up a sailmaking business in Greenock in 1861. Many ships were made on the Clyde, but by the 1900s, fewer ships were powered by sail so his son Thomas (Junior) changed the business priorities to making tents instead. His father died in 1905 and he took over the company, making many tents for the Army in the First World War. He died in May 1930, and his son, D Crawford Black took over.
Boardwear Division
It is said that the boardwear division has been responsible for the recent financial troubles of Blacks Leisure. At its peak, the boardwear arm of Blacks Leisure Group was operating through Freespirit, O'Neill, Mambo and Just Add Water. The appointment of current CEO Neil Gillis, saw the baordwear arm of Blacks slowly diluted as part of a turnaround plan and restructuring of the group to focus on the core part of the business, Camping and Outdoor. Today, all that remains of the boardwear division is Freesprit which operates from 12 stores.
freespirit
Acquired as part of a deal that saw the company acquire the Millets chain. Originating from Sheffield, the original owners of Freespirit specialised in Windsurfing, Wakeboarding, Mountain Boarding and a variety of other adrenalin sports equipment. After taking over Freepsirit, Blacks put a fashionable stamp on the stores and it worked. However, after a severe lack of vision and no attempt to regenerate or engage its customers with the same old tried and tested formula, freespirit struggled at a time when the boardsports 10 year trend cycle was on an upward trend. This lack of vision was realised in 2009/10 when it trimmed its 32 stores to 13. At the same time, another northampton based Boardwear company 2Seasons expanded its profile from 10 to 24 stores and is still growing.
Whislt the boardsports market was booming unfortuantley blacks choice at wanting to turn a core boardsports industry into that of a fashion based retailer as such as Ben Sherman etc was a very bad lack of judgement. Taking its core highly trainned and passionatie boardsports staff who had been there since the start of Free Spirit takeover from blacks to be replaced by Highend retail managers and retail based staff. Soon before blacks could pull from the mistake they had made it was too late. Their new re-vamp shops were un inviting, Product was low end quality and overall not what boardsports customers were looking for.O'Neill / Sandcity
Sandcity was born after a business based in Tyne & Wear acquired the license to the distribute O'Neill in the UK. The company lacked capital and sought funding from Blacks Leisure Group. Blacks agreed and Sandcity was created. Blacks appointed Darren Spurling as Managing Director who oversaw the company until 2008 when the Sandcity business was transferred from Washington, Tyne & Wear to Blacks Head Office in Northampton. Following the restructuring of the Sandcity subsidiary, the O'Neill brand in the UK was slowly but eventually diluted. In 2009 the O'Neill license was removed from Black Leisure and handed back to Logo Group International based in the Netherlands and is the Global HQ of O'Neill.
Mambo
Mambo was acquired in 2006 after Blacks signed a five year agreement for the rights to develop and distribute the Mambo brand throughout Europe. The deal was said to be worth an estimated £40 million. Following initial growth, the Mambo brand was also diluted as part of the restructure of the core business. In February 2010, Blacks sold Mambo to New Zealand born Andrew Gerrie (CEO of Lush Cosmetics) for £800,000.
Just Add Water
The majority of Just Add Water stores were transformed into Freepsirit stores after the company's acquisition.
Second World War
In 1931, it published the first Good Companions catalogue. In the Second World War, Blacks again made tents for the Army and Navy and made fenders for boats on D-Day. During the early part of the war, the workshops in Greenock were destroyed by a parachute mine on 8 May 1941.
Acquisitions
A Canadian subsidiary opened in 1958. Throughout the 1960s, it bought smaller companies. Then in 1967, it bought Benjamin Edginton Ltd, a tent maker. In 1984, it joined with Greenfields plc, then became the Black Leisure Group plc in 1985. In 1994, Blacks Camping became Blacks Outdoors.
Technicals
TECHNICALS is an outdoor clothing and equipment manufacturer owned by Blacks Leisure Group. It was launched in 2005 by The Outdoor Group, initially as a fashionable and practical outdoor clothing range. However, they soon began designing and manufacturing their waterproof and breathable eVENT range, particularly jackets and overtrousers.
Free Spirit
Free Spirit is the company's specialist surfwear retailer, with 15 UK stores.
Products
The company manufactures the following brands for sale in its Blacks and Millets stores:
- Peter Storm
- Eurohike
- ALS
- Storm Tech (until the end of 2009)
- Storm Shield
- Technicals
- Rare Species was a further brand that has recently been withdrawn
See also
References
External links
- Blacks Leisure Group plc (corporate)
- Blacks shops
- Company information
- Careers
- Reviews of Blacks at DooYoo
- Reviews of Blacks website
News items
- Sports Direct gives up interest in April 2010
- Rescue plan in November 2009
- Closing 89 shops in September 2009
- Uncertainty in September 2009
- Director suspended in March 2008
- Closing 45 stores in March 2007
- Good summer in 2003
Video clips
Categories:- Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange
- Retail companies of the United Kingdom
- Companies based in Northampton
- Camping equipment manufacturers
- Companies established in 1861
- Camping in the United Kingdom
- Outdoor clothing brands
- Clothing brands of the United Kingdom
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