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Harrods Group

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Harrods Group (Holding) Limited
Company typePrivately held
IndustryRetail
GenreDepartment stores
Founded
  • 1849; 176 years ago (1849) in London, England (Harrods department store)
  • 1889; 136 years ago (1889) (Harrod's Stores Limited)
  • 7 November 2006; 18 years ago (2006-11-07) (Harrods Group)
FounderCharles Henry Harrod
Headquarters68–72 Hammersmith Road,
Hammersmith, London
,
England
ProductsQuality and luxury goods
RevenueIncrease £2 billion (2017)
Increase £253.3 million (2017)
Increase £233.2 million (2017)
OwnerQatar Investment Authority (2010–present)
Number of employees
Increase 4,000 (2019)
Subsidiaries
Websiteharrods.com/harrods-group
Footnotes / references
[1][2][3]

Harrods Group (Holding) Limited, doing business as the Harrods Group, is a British holding company that owns the Harrods luxury department store in Knightsbridge, London, England. The original Harrods store was founded in 1849 by Charles Henry Harrod, and the first holding company, Harrod's Stores Limited, was formed and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1889. It was acquired by and merged into the House of Fraser in 1959, which itself was acquired by the Fayed brothers and became a privately held company in 1985. When the House of Fraser was relisted on the stock exchange, the Harrods business was split off to remain privately held in 1994. The present-day Harrods Group was established by the Fayed brothers in 2006. It was sold to the Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, in 2010.

The Harrods Group is headquartered in Hammersmith, London. Beyond the flagship department store, it has operated Harrods-branded specialty shops in the United Kingdom, airports, and cruise ships. It has also applied the brand name to non-retail enterprises including Harrods Estates and Harrods Aviation.

History

[edit]

Harrods opened its first and only foreign branch in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1914. It became independent of the British shop in the late 1940s, but continued to trade under the Harrods name,[4] for many years the only Harrods outside Britain. The Harrods Furniture Depository was also built in Barnes, near Hammersmith Bridge in 1914.

A Harrods shop opened on board the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California in 1990, which was then owned by the Walt Disney Company. That year, it gave right to Duty Free International for a licence to operate a Harrods Signature Shop at Toronto Pearson International Airport's Terminal 3 (closed shortly after)[5] In 1997, an English court issued an injunction to restrain the Buenos Aires Harrods store from trading under the Harrods name, but the House of Lords in 1998 dismissed Fayed's lawsuit.[4] The following year, the store in Buenos Aires closed after racking up large amounts of debt. There had been offers to buy the store from Falabella, El Corte Inglés, Printemps and more but Atilio Gilbertoni the owner of Harrods in Buenos Aires did not accept the offers as he wanted to keep the controlling stake in the brand.[6]

A Harrods shop opened on board the Queen Elizabeth 2, owned by the Cunard Line, in 2000. The Harrods "102" shop opens opposite the main shop in Brompton Road in 2006, and featured concessions like Krispy Kreme and Yo! Sushi, as well as florists, a herbalist, a masseur, and an oxygen spa; itclosed in 2013. A location at Heathrow Airport (Terminal 5) opened in 2008.[7]

The company looked at the possibility of expanding to China and opening a new shop in Shanghai in 2010. Managing director Michael Ward stated that "there are other areas of the world where we could operate profitably." The number of Chinese shoppers visiting Harrods was increasing, and the average spent by a Chinese shopper was three times that of any other nationality.[8] Harrods Bank, having operated since 1893, was sold to Tandem and rebranded to Tandem Bank in 2017.[9]

After lockdowns and restriction during the covid pandemic, Harrods made a loss of £68 million in 2020, reduced staff numbers, paid no dividend to its owners and said that no dividend was likely for another two years, and faced a strike by dozens of restaurant workers.[10]

Department store acquisitions

[edit]
List of department stores acquired by Harrods Limited[7]
Name Year
founded
Year
acquired
Year
defunct
Notes
D H Evans 1893 1928 2001 Rebranded as House of Fraser
Dickins & Jones 1835 1914 2007 Rebranded as House of Fraser
John Walsh 1875 1946 1987 Rebranded as House of Fraser
Kendals 1836 1919 2005 Briefly renamed Harrods in the 1920s; rebranded as House of Fraser
Rackhams 1881 1955 2000 Rebranded as House of Fraser
Swan & Edgar 1812 1920 1982
Walter Carter Ltd 1920
William Henderson & Co 1949

Harrods store locations

[edit]
List of Harrods store locations
Ceremonial
county
Borough
or district
Property
name
Year
opened
Year
closed
Notes
Greater London Hillingdon Heathrow Airport 2008 Located in terminals 2, 3, 4, and 5
Knightsbridge 87–135 Brompton Road 1849 Namesake and flagship property
White City Westfield London 2020 2021 Harrods Outlet during COVID-19 pandemic
West Sussex Crawley Gatwick Airport 2013 Located in North and South terminals

Harrods-branded enterprises

[edit]
Company Industry
Harrods Aviation Business travel
Harrods Estates Estate agent
Harrods Interior Design Interior design

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Harrods Limited". Companies House. Archived from the original on 5 September 2019. Retrieved 2019-08-28.
  2. ^ Jahshan, Elias (2017-10-16). "Harrods smashes £2bn sales mark for the first time – Retail Gazette". Retail Gazette. Archived from the original on 11 October 2018. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
  3. ^ "Persons with significant control". Companies House. Archived from the original on 1 September 2019. Retrieved 2019-08-28.
  4. ^ a b Bianchi, Alejandro (18 September 1999). "Harrods volvería a ser una galería internacional" [Harrods may return to be an international arcade]. LA NACION (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 4 April 2022. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  5. ^ "Duty Free International Inc. announces plans to open a Harrods Signature Shop at the new terminal 3-Lester B. Pearson Toronto International Airport. – PR Newswire | HighBeam Research: Online Press Releases". Highbeam.com. 24 January 1990. Retrieved 22 August 2010.[dead link]
  6. ^ Clarín.com (1999-07-11). "Sale a remate el local de Harrods en la calle Florida". Clarín (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 11 September 2022. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  7. ^ a b "Harrods & Selfridges: a history of the ownership of two iconic department stores". The Industry Fashion. Archived from the original on 12 May 2023. Retrieved 12 May 2023.
  8. ^ Finch, Julia (8 July 2010). "Harrods eyes Shanghai to cash in on China's new wealth". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 15 September 2013. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
  9. ^ "Tandem gets banking licence after closing Harrods Bank acquisition". Finextra Research. 2018-01-11. Archived from the original on 11 September 2022. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  10. ^ Butler, Sarah (3 November 2021). "Harrods £68m in red and faces strike by dozens of restaurant workers". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 3 November 2021. Retrieved 3 November 2021.