Dunnes Stores to be sold

Jip

Baahhh, it'll be nothing after all the speculation here, just announcements about Christmas opening hours and a reduction in staffs Christmas bonus's or some other non-event thing.

delly

A few months back Dunnes cancelled a few new shops being opened, at the time it was said to be due to cutting back etc., but it makes sense now that it was because they were putting a price tag on the company.

Where I live they are supposed to be opening at the end of the month, as of yet I haven't seen any Dunnes hoarding, so who knows.

getz

dont knock irish food most of it is fresh --o lot better than chip butties

Fratton Fred

snorlax wrote: »

they´ll have to rename us New England! the amount of english owned stores here..

yep, Walmart, Spar, Starbucks, Lidl, Pennys, Vero Moda, Jack & jones, even Ikea are opening up not to mention 3 and O2. Even eircom and Meteor are English owned.

Seriously though, it is an easy place to British based retail outlets to open up, everyone here supports Man United, or watches UK television so the brands are well enough known. For example, Eircell was one of the best known brands in Ireland, but Vodafone was better known even though they didn't actually trade in Ireland at the time, so when voda bought eircell they changed the name quickly. In Germany it went from D2 to D2Vodafone, then to VodafoneD2 then to Vodafone over the space of 12 to 18 months.

Pennys, or Primark as it in called in the UK, is one of the leading retailers, so the Irish are holding their own. Real Estate Opportunities, one of the most active development companies in London (Who are behind the £300m redevelopment of Battersea Power Station) are Irish owned and look at Kerry foods, they aint doing so bad.

Asda/Walmart buying Dunnes is just another example of how big business is getting more and more global and in my opinion, this can only be good news for the Irish consumer.

Steyr

Jip wrote: »

Baahhh, it'll be nothing after all the speculation here, just announcements about Christmas opening hours and a reduction in staffs Christmas bonus's or some other non-event thing.

I work for Dunnes too, and i read more or less the above in the Indo this morning, something to do with giving Mgt better communication between eachother.



Here ya go:http://www.independent.ie/national-news/union-fears-dunnes-will-be-sold-1521706.html

Union fears Dunnes will be sold


By John Mulligan


Wednesday November 05 2008

The Mandate trade union last night demanded to know whether Dunnes Stores had been sold as intense speculation mounted about the future of the store chain.

The union has asked Dunnes, headed by matriarch Margaret Heffernan, to clarify the speculation but the store, which opened its first shop in 1944 and is notoriously tight-lipped, failed to reply to a plea by Mandate.

Industry sources at Dunnes Stores last night dismissed speculation that UK retailer Asda had bought the 120-strong Irish chain.

Speculation was rife yesterday that Dunnes is set to announce that it has been acquired by a competitor following a flurry of calls by concerned workers at the retail giant to Mandate.

Asda, which is owned by US-based retailing giant Wal-Mart, declined to comment, but expressed surprise that the rumours had resurfaced. For at least eight years, there has been occasional speculation that Asda and Dunnes were about to link up.

Last week, Dunnes Stores regional managers were told to ensure that store managers and other key personnel were in place today for a series of meetings and this fuelled the speculation.

Meetings

However, it's understood that the planned meetings have now been cancelled. The meetings were likely to concern an update on the retailer's plans for Christmas trading hours, as well as staff rosters and sales targets for the period.

Dunnes Stores is known to have been under intense pressure in the retail market from Tesco, with German chains Lidl and Aldi also piling on the competition as the recession forces more shoppers to make their wages go further.

Earlier this year Tesco also launched a new range of value-priced products in an effort to keep shoppers who might otherwise have opted to visit Lidl or Aldi.

All grocery retailers, including the Musgrave-owned SuperValu chains and Superquinn, have been waging price battles in recent weeks to lure customers.

Traditionally, Dunnes Stores has followed the lead of other retailers such as Tesco in determining its store opening hours over Christmas.

Last year Dunnes, which has a roughly 24pc share of the country's €15bn grocery market, is understood to have held a meeting in the Burlington Hotel in Dublin at which senior managers were informed of trading plans for the season.

No such group meeting is taking place this year, and instead in-store meetings will take place.

The initiative may have been an attempt to actually improve communications between the head office and senior staff in the field that instead backfired.

It's believed that Ms Heffernan's son, Michael, who is in his mid-thirties, is now being groomed to eventually take over the helm at the supermarket giant.

- John Mulligan

ongarite

Jip wrote: »

Baahhh, it'll be nothing after all the speculation here, just announcements about Christmas opening hours and a reduction in staffs Christmas bonus's or some other non-event thing.

You are correct. This morning meeting was about just that, nothing to do with the rumoured ASDA take-over.
Budget cut-backs and staff reductions..

Jip

So did the meeting happen this morning ? I thought it was put off until Thursday ?
The reason why I said what I did was that I have alot of contacts between the 2 biggest multi nationals and it was in fact the non-Dunnes staff who were jumping to the conclusion that Dunnes has been sold.

Having said that I'm still open to correction until the official word comes from Dunnes who are usually tight lipped about anything to do with the company.

SimpleSam06

Fratton Fred wrote: »

yep, Walmart, Spar, Starbucks, Lidl, Pennys, Vero Moda, Jack & jones, even Ikea are opening up not to mention 3 and O2. Even eircom and Meteor are English owned.

Seriously though, it is an easy place to British based retail outlets to open up, everyone here supports Man United, or watches UK television so the brands are well enough known.

Bahaha, Fratton Fred in his one man quest to recolonise the west country, a book should be wrote. Just to knock down one of the several fallacious claims, Eircom is owned by an Australian.

jesus_thats_gre

snorlax wrote:

they´ll have to rename us New England! the amount of english owned stores here..

Fratton Fred wrote: »

yep, Walmart, Spar, Starbucks, Lidl, Pennys, Vero Moda, Jack & jones, even Ikea are opening up not to mention 3 and O2. Even eircom and Meteor are English owned.

Seriously though, it is an easy place to British based retail outlets to open up, everyone here supports Man United, or watches UK television so the brands are well enough known. For example, Eircell was one of the best known brands in Ireland, but Vodafone was better known even though they didn't actually trade in Ireland at the time, so when voda bought eircell they changed the name quickly. In Germany it went from D2 to D2Vodafone, then to VodafoneD2 then to Vodafone over the space of 12 to 18 months.

Pennys, or Primark as it in called in the UK, is one of the leading retailers, so the Irish are holding their own. Real Estate Opportunities, one of the most active development companies in London (Who are behind the £300m redevelopment of Battersea Power Station) are Irish owned and look at Kerry foods, they aint doing so bad.

Asda/Walmart buying Dunnes is just another example of how big business is getting more and more global and in my opinion, this can only be good news for the Irish consumer.

Walmark - America
Spar - Dutch I think
Starbucks - America
Lidl - Germany
Pennys - UK
Vero Moda - Denmark
Jack & Jones - Denmark
Ikea - Sweden
Three - God knows, asia somewhere
O2 - Spannish
Eircom and Meteor - Australian I think


Hmmm, damn those English companies indeed..



As for Eircell and Vodafone when Vodafone took over. I worked for Eircell at the time and the company was called Eircell Vodafone for nearly a year if I remember correctly.


IIRC, Pennys are or were owend by Power Supermarkets. These are the crowd that sold Crazy Prices and Quinnsworth to Tesco. You will probably have noticed that there was always a Penny's and a Crazy Prices or Quinnsworth as the anchor tenants in new Shopping Centres back in the day.


Anyway, no real point to this post other than identifying where you went astray.

Linku

Ugh, ASDA is gross. Totally doesn't fit in with what Dunnes have been doing the last few years, what will become of the new Georges St. or Henry St. stores? ASDA is all about big-box out of town cheap ass buildings, it doesn't fit.
Sainsbury's would be a better match, but they can't match Wal-Mart's cash. They've been rumoured to take over Superquinn for a while too.

Fratton Fred

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Bahaha, Fratton Fred in his one man quest to recolonise the west country, a book should be wrote. Just to knock down one of the several fallacious claims, Eircom is owned by an Australian.

none of them are UK companies, that was the point sorry if it was to subtle :rolleyes:

Fratton Fred

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

As for Eircell and Vodafone when Vodafone took over. I worked for Eircell at the time and the company was called Eircell Vodafone for nearly a year if I remember correctly.


IIRC, Pennys are or were owend by Power Supermarkets. These are the crowd that sold Crazy Prices and Quinnsworth to Tesco. You will probably have noticed that there was always a Penny's and a Crazy Prices or Quinnsworth as the anchor tenants in new Shopping Centres back in the day.


Anyway, no real point to this post other than identifying where you went astray.

obviously my attempt at irony failed miserably. pennys is Irish owned, there was a documentary on them recently.

I was at Vodafone UK at the time, i thought it was a lot less than a year, maybe only six months ish. which compared to the length of time it took to re-brand D2 and the other companies Voda bought was pretty quick.

Anyway, my point was really about the fact that there are loads of global operators in the market now and this is just another example of gloabisation more than anything.

dsmythy

getz wrote: »

keep your heads guys and gals if ASDA walmart buy DUNES it wont be all that bad for a start prices will drop and TESCO will have to drop there prices as well my wife has worked for ASDA over 20 years{before it was WALMART] and finds it a good place to work --low prices good for ireland

Unless they did their research and found us Irish not the best at value hunting. I'll guess at temporary low prices to get their foot in the door and then a gradual build up to join the gravy train. Hopefully the recession will knock this plan down.

To Aldi with ye!

SimpleSam06

dsmythy wrote: »

Unless they did their research and found us Irish not the best at value hunting.

I still remember my Aunties stuffing the purses with sugar sachets from restaurant bowls after we ate out, back in the day. You'd be surprised how good people get at saving when things are tight.

Marcus.Aurelius

We'll get ripped off by different people with different accents.

Oh dear. How dreadful.

Fratton Fred

Joker wrote: »

We'll get ripped off by different people with different accents.

Oh dear. How dreadful.

personally I have trouble telling the difference between a polish and a Latvian accent, so it will all be the same to me:D

Marcus.Aurelius

Fratton Fred wrote: »

personally I have trouble telling the difference between a polish and a Latvian accent, so it will all be the same to me:D

Agreed

I meant the top dogs :pac:

dsmythy

Fratton Fred wrote: »

personally I have trouble telling the difference between a polish and a Latvian accent, so it will all be the same to me:D

Really? I find the Polish accent quite distinct compared to other nationalities. Maybe it's just me.

Alun

Fratton Fred wrote: »

obviously my attempt at irony failed miserably. pennys is Irish owned, there was a documentary on them recently.

No they're not. The parent company is Primark Stores Ltd., a subsidiary of Associated British Foods, they just trade under the Pennys name in Ireland.

ejmaztec

Alun wrote: »

No they're not. The parent company is Primark Stores Ltd., a subsidiary of Associated British Foods, they just trade under the Pennys name in Ireland.

ABF Ironically enough, being the former owner of Quinnsworth and controlled by the Canadian Weston family.

the groutch

FreedomJoe wrote: »

They will trial 1 or 2 but nothing major.

As I say expect Debenhams to snap up a few.

Asda is currently expanding into the Republic of Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asda

Debenhams are strugglin with the stores they bought off Roches, and if anything are more likely to pull out of the irish market

Have you been in their Blackrock store recently?
A song by The Specials springs to mind

icdg

Alun wrote: »

No they're not. The parent company is Primark Stores Ltd., a subsidiary of Associated British Foods, they just trade under the Pennys name in Ireland.

But strangely in this case, Penney's came first, opening a couple of years before the first Primark. The parent company is indeed Associated British Foods plc which is registered in England and Wales but whose primary shareholder is the Canadian Weston family, another branch of which owns Brown Thomas oddly enough.

Primark/Penney's is still run out of Dublin by Arthur Ryan et al, though once he retires its thought the HQ will moving to England.

I'd be very upset about this.
Dunnes is a steadfast friend to me.
Alot of shops don't stock clothes up to my size, I can always trust Dunnes to bail me out of a clothing spot.

Asda's range george simply isn't of a comparable quality.
Where I'm living at the moment, I won't actually be able to buy remotely lasting clothes locally. Disaster.

kraggy

FreedomJoe wrote: »

Well I can tell you this.


Expect thousands of lay offs!

Bad side,


Expect to see a end to Supervalue with the likes of Sainsburys coming in and snapping up any of the good redundant stores.



And I say all this as someone in the know.

Super Valu has created its own nice in the market with smaller shops beside apartment blocks and on corners in more built-up, denseley populated urban areas that means it will be little affected by Sainsbury's (if indeed they do enter the market which I personally can't see happening) or Asda.

Asda, Tesco et al attract more people who wish to do a whole week's shop and have transport to carry their shopping from large extra-urban shopping centres such as the ones that said supermarket chains are/will be located.

Richard

MIN2511 wrote: »

WTF....

Seriously, are there any more Irish owned shops anymore???

I found out yesterday that Spar is German

It's a German brand but the Spars in Ireland are owned by an Irish company. A Northern Irish company owns the spars there. And so on.

darrenh

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Walmark - America
Spar - Dutch I think
Starbucks - America
Lidl - Germany
Pennys - UK
Vero Moda - Denmark
Jack & Jones - Denmark
Ikea - Sweden
Three - God knows, asia somewhere
O2 - Spannish
Eircom and Meteor - Australian I think


Hmmm, damn those English companies indeed..



IIRC, Pennys are or were owend by Power Supermarkets. These are the crowd that sold Crazy Prices and Quinnsworth to Tesco. You will probably have noticed that there was always a Penny's and a Crazy Prices or Quinnsworth as the anchor tenants in new Shopping Centres back in the day.


Anyway, no real point to this post other than identifying where you went astray.

Penneys are actually owed by ABF which is controlled by a Canadian man. Penneys was started in Ireland and grew its base here before opening as Primark in the UK. Head office is in Dublin and all directors are Irish. Penneys im afraid is an Irish success story with Canadian money!

Fratton Fred

ejmaztec wrote: »

ABF Ironically enough, being the former owner of Quinnsworth and controlled by the Canadian Weston family.

icdg wrote: »

But strangely in this case, Penney's came first, opening a couple of years before the first Primark. The parent company is indeed Associated British Foods plc which is registered in England and Wales but whose primary shareholder is the Canadian Weston family, another branch of which owns Brown Thomas oddly enough.

Primark/Penney's is still run out of Dublin by Arthur Ryan et al, though once he retires its thought the HQ will moving to England.

darrenh wrote: »

Penneys are actually owed by ABF which is controlled by a Canadian man. Penneys was started in Ireland and grew its base here before opening as Primark in the UK. Head office is in Dublin and all directors are Irish. Penneys im afraid is an Irish success story with Canadian money!

**** me, I wish I hadn't mentioned it now

phasers

I want Asda to come here soon now so I can get this:

http://direct.asda.com/The-Little-Black-Coat/GEM2211,default,pd.html]

all their other clothes look really nice too

Chong

Richard wrote: »

It's a German brand but the Spars in Ireland are owned by an Irish company. A Northern Irish company owns the spars there. And so on.

Spar is a Dutch Company not German!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPAR

Blush_01

SuperValu as a franchise is a bit odd. Musgraves run some of the stores themselves (Ballybrack, for example, and they used to run Finglas until they closed it down. Both are/were dives though).

Lots of owners are leaving and have left the Centra franchise in favour of Londis who apparently don't have as many restrictions as part of the franchise agreement. If a chain was to come in with more lenient requirements I'm sure they'd be serious competition for Musgraves where both SuperValu and Centra are concerned.