Dunnes Stores
Dunnes Stores is an Irish multinational retail chain that primarily sells food, clothes and household wares.
It was founded by Ben Dunne in 1944.
In addition to its main customer base in Ireland, the chain also has operations in Spain. The format of most of the chain's stores in Ireland involves a grocery supermarket operating alongside a clothing/textiles store, although some stores contain only textiles and some contain only a supermarket. The grocery side of the business does not operate outside of Ireland, save for a limited grocery range in the Spanish stores and Northern Ireland. The larger stores usually contain a café branded as either Café Sol or Dunnes Stores Café.
Dunnes Stores' original own brand of groceries was sold under the St Bernard brand introduced in 1956, becoming an Irish household name, but was rebranded as "My Family Favourites" in 2013.
The main domestic competitors in the supermarket business are Tesco, SuperValu, Lidl and Aldi. Since first opening, Dunnes Stores has consistently maintained a top-three market share in Ireland's grocery market, formerly alongside Quinnsworth and currently alongside SuperValu and Tesco. Combined, Dunnes, Tesco and SuperValu currently account for approximately 70% of Ireland's grocery market. Currently, Dunnes Stores is Ireland’s number one supermarket, holding this title since 2018.
In clothing, their rivals include Penneys and Marks and Spencer.
Dunnes collaborate for many clothing/home wares collections from a number of Irish designers such as Paul Costelloe, Pádraig Harrington, Carolyn Donnelly, Joanne Hynes and Paul Galvin.
They also sell in-house clothing brands such as Savida and Gallery, along with their own Dunnes Stores brand of clothing.
History
1940s–1950s
began his retail career as an employee at Anderson's drapery shop in Drogheda, Ireland, in 1926. He later worked in Cameron's drapery shop in Longford town. In the mid-1930s, Dunne moved to Roches Stores in Cork. He rose to become a senior buyer for Roches Stores. When he was asked to oversee Roches' entire drapery business, he agreed on condition that he receive a pay rise. The owners refused, noting that he would be earning more than any of them. Dunne decided to leave Roches Stores and set up his own business.Dunne, together with his friend Des Darrer, opened his first drapery shop across the road from Roches Stores on St Patrick’s Street, Cork on 31 March 1944, promising "better value" by offering goods at pre-war prices.
The business expanded in the late 1940s, opening new shops on Cathedral Street, Waterford on 8 August 1946 and on North Main Street, Cork and in Mallow in 1947.
Dunne and Darrer continued as partners until 1952, when they dissolved the partnership and Darrer took ownership of the Waterford shop, initially continuing to trade under the Dunnes Stores name before renaming it Darrers in 1966.
Dunnes opened shops on O'Connell Street, Limerick in 1954 and in Wexford in 1955.
During the 1950s, Dunnes began to take its first small steps towards entering the grocery market, selling boxes of apples and oranges from its shop on St Patrick's Street, Cork.
Dunnes introduced its own-brand range in 1956, then branded as St Bernard, modelled on the Marks & Spencer St Michael brand.
Dunnes opened its first Dublin shop, on Henry Street, in 1957.
1960s–1970s
Dunne opened a large shop on South Great George's Street, Dublin in 1960. This shop allowed customers to browse through items on racks before making a purchase, which was new to Irish retail.Dunnes continued to expand during the 1960s, and in 1963, Dunne grouped his growing number of stores under a new corporate structure, Dunnes Holding Company, which took over ownership of the entire operation. He also set up a family trust at the same time, in part to ensure that the company remained family controlled.
In the early 1960s, Dunnes began to gradually expand its small grocery offering, adding cream crackers and cheese to its limited range.
On 31 December 1963, Dunne announced the purchase of Anderson's department store in Drogheda, where he had served his apprenticeship in the 1920s.
In May 1964, Dunnes announced the acquisition of Rowe's drapers on North Earl Street, Dublin. Initially it continued to trade under the Rowe's name but it was rebranded as Dunnes Stores shortly thereafter.
In the middle of the decade Dunne sparked a new revolution in the Irish retail scene. Until then, the company's stores had operated, like the country's retail sector in general, in Ireland's city centre. In 1965, however, Dunnes opened a store at Cornelscourt in what was then Ireland's first out-of-town shopping centre. Although scoffed at by experts, who believed the company would fail at the new location, the Cornelscourt site was not only a success, but became one of the company's flagship stores.
By the end of the 1960s, Dunnes operated 17 stores across Ireland. This increased to 19 by October 1971. The company remained intensely private and, despite an active advertising schedule, wary of publicity. As Ben Dunne explained, in what the Times described as a rare interview in 1971, "If there is one thing I hate it is publicity. No one is allowed to write about Ben Dunne. The people I do not like are the people who talk about what they have done and the people who talk about what they are going to do." In that same interview, Dunne reaffirmed his commitment to maintaining family control of his business, saying: "Public companies are like the government. The government has the privilege of spending money foolishly and public companies are no better."
Dunnes added its first store in Northern Ireland, in Bangor, in 1971.
In 1972, Dunnes Stores bought the Bolger Stores Group chain of drapery shops and House of Cassidy womenswear chain.
In 1978, Dunnes purchased Crumlin Shopping Centre in Dublin, which had been built four years earlier with 41 units including 2 large units, and having Dunnes Stores as anchor.
The company continued to expand its retail business, and by the end of the 1970s, it had built up a network of 61 stores.
1980s–1990s
By the beginning of the 1980s, the company operated seven stores in Northern Ireland. It opened a shop in Lisburn in March 1980.In 1980, Dunnes opened its first shop on the European continent, in Fuengirola in the Costa del Sol in Spain. The success of that venture led the company to begin construction on its second Spanish store the following year, which opened in Marbella.
By 1981, Dunnes Stores represented 66 locations, producing estimated sales revenues of some £200,000,000, and holding an 8% share of the Irish grocery market. Dunne, by then in his 70s, had succeeded in building his company into one of Ireland's top ten firms. Dunne also had been joined by his five children, Frank, Margaret, Thérèse, Elizabeth, and, especially, youngest son Ben Dunne Jr. The company became swept up in political events in October 1981 when Ben Dunne Jr. was kidnapped and held captive for several days by the IRA.
Ben Dunne Senior died of a heart attack at 4pm on 14 April 1983. At the time of his death, Dunnes Stores had 48 shops in the Republic of Ireland, 10 in the House of Cassidy chain, 18 in Northern Ireland and one in Spain.
After Ben Dunne Senior's death, the business was placed in a Trust for the benefit of all five of his children, most of whom played an active role in the company's operations. His sons, Ben Junior and Frank, became Managing Directors, and his daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth and Therese, were Directors. In practice, it was Ben Dunne Junior who primarily took up leadership the company.
By 1985, Dunnes Stores held a 21% share in the Irish grocery market, with turnover of approximately £460,000,000.
Dunnes expanded into England in 1986.
By 1990, Dunnes Stores's share of the Irish grocery market had increased to 24%.
In 1990, Dunnes closed the drapery shop it had opened on South Great George's Street in Dublin in 1960, which at the time had been one of Ireland's first self-selection drapery shops.
In November 1990, a price war broke out amongst the main supermarkets. Dunnes introduced a voucher scheme offering £6 off every £30 spent. The Crazy Prices chain reacted by accepting Dunnes's vouchers in its own shops. The Quinnsworth chain shortly thereafter introduced its own "£4 off every £25 spent" scheme, and Roches Stores introduced a similar scheme.
In late October 1992, Dunnes introduced a discount scheme giving customers a £5 voucher for every £40 spent. In early November, the Director of Consumer Affairs obtained a High Court injunction putting an end to the scheme, arguing that it was effectively a form of below-cost selling, which was outlawed at the time. Rival Quinnsworth withdrew a similar "£6 off every £40 spent" scheme.
In February 1992, Ben Dunne Junior was arrested for cocaine possession in a Florida hotel.
Following the resulting scandal, his siblings ousted him as Chairman of the board of Dunnes Stores in February 1993, resulting in a somewhat public battle among the otherwise publicity-shy family.
In the first year after Ben Dunne Junior's removal as chairman, Dunnes Stores's share of the Irish grocery market fell from 24% to 20%.
Elizabeth died in 1993, leaving her four siblings as directors but leaving her share in the business to her children. Therese died in 1994, leaving the entirety of her 19% share to Margaret, giving her a majority holding in the business.
In order to quantify and document the financial dealings of her brother, Margaret Heffernan commissioned a report from Price Waterhouse accountants, which was eventually disclosed in the legal case between the Dunne siblings.
Following his removal as chairman, Ben Dunne Junior had issued court proceedings against Dunnes Stores, arguing that the Trust that nominally owned most of the business for the benefit of the siblings was null and void and that he was the victim of shareholder oppression on the part of his siblings. The proceedings were ultimately settled on the basis that he would be paid a figure to relinquish his share of the business, leaving ownership in the hands of his surviving siblings, Margaret, Frank and Ann, and his late sister Elizabeth's children.
The alleged unorthodoxy of Ben Dunne Junior's business practices, which included funnelling Dunnes Stores funds into the offshore bank accounts of a number of Irish political figures, brought the company once again into the limelight in the late-1990s. The resulting political scandal had an additional consequence for the very private company, when the government announced in 1997 that it would appoint an authorised officer to inquire into the company's business practices under Ben Dunne Jr.
In March 1997, UK supermarket giant Tesco entered the Irish market by purchasing the Quinnsworth, Crazy Prices and Stewart's Supermarkets chains, posing significant competition to Dunnes by its greater size and economies of scale.
Dunnes introduced its loyalty card scheme in 1997.
German discounter supermarket Aldi entered the Irish market in 1999, followed shortly afterwards by Lidl with its similar model in 2000. The arrival of the German discounters placed Dunnes's own discount formula under significant pressure.
In late 1999, Dunnes was said to have held buyout talks in 2000 with U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart, which owns the Asda supermarket chain, which operates in Northern Ireland. Walmart wished to combine its Asda operations with Dunnes in order to increase buying power and profits. The Dunne family, however, declined and decided to retain control of their business.