The story
Edcon Ltd was the leading clothing, footwear and textiles (CFT) retailing group in South Africa trading through a range of retail formats. The first Edgars store was opened on 6 September 1929 in Joubert Street, Johannesburg by Sydney Press. It was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1949 and opened its first stores outside of South Africa in Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (now Eswatini) in 1966-69. Since then, the Company had grown to ten retail brands trading in (as of 2014) over 1,400 stores in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
In 1982 the company, still known as Edgars, was acquired by South African Breweries. It launched its Red Square retail chain in 1996 and acquired the struggling stationery retailer CNA in 2002 for R130 million. The company acquired the houseware retailer Boardmans in 2004 for R94 million.
Edcon Financial Services provided credit facilities and financial services products to the Group's over 4 million cardholders. In November 2015, according to reports, Edcon Limited referred to the National Consumer Tribunal. In October 2017, it was reported that Edcon rewarded its customers with a revitalised ''thank U'' customer reward programme.
Bain Capital concluded a private equity deal that delisted the group from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2007. Following the delisting the company experienced numerous challenges.
In early 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company ceased to pay rents for its retail locations while the resultant lockdowns in South Africa prevented businesses from operating. The group has subsequently gone into Business Rescue with a number of their subsidiaries being sold off to other Fashion Retail Holding Companies.
From Wikipedia’s article on Edcon, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5