The story
Dunn & Co. was founded in 1887 by George Arthur Dunn, a Quaker, who started by selling hats on the streets of Birmingham. Forty years later he had two hundred hat shops and as many franchises in other stores. These gradually developed into a string of High Street stores specialising in formal wear, especially suits, blazers, tweed sports jackets and flannels.
The company was a stalwart of the British High Street, but found it increasingly difficult to remain relevant in the fast changing retail environment of the 1980s: as new and innovative retailers opened up – with Next for men being a prime example - it struggled to adapt. The company engaged the services of management consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers in a bid to revitalise and refocus, but the programme they initiated failed to make the significant changes necessary to ensure long-term survival.
In 1991 Dunn & Co gave Ayr-House an option to buy the company in a deal thought to value the company at approximately £50 million. The Ayr-House deal was instigated and led by businessman Robert Lees with backing from Nomura (The Daily Telegraph, 1 May 1991 and 9 May 1991).
The group trading started showing serious problems in 1991, with nearly forty shops being sold to Hodges, a private Welsh group which kept the Dunn & Co. name going. In 1994 a majority stake was sold to venture capitalists CinVen, who appointed Anthony Phillips and Jim Bellingham to run the chain.
From Wikipedia’s article on Dunn & Co., shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3