Homebase is about to return in a slimmed-down format after the DIY chain’s collapse final month, with its new proprietor CDS confirming plans to reopen 70 former shops underneath the Vary Superstores banner.
Every outlet will protect the Homebase title in backyard centre sections, and a few may even incorporate Homebase-branded kitchen departments.
CDS, based by ex-market dealer Chris Dawson, intends to launch the primary three transformed shops on 17 January in Pollokshaws (Glasgow), Christchurch (Bournemouth) and Kings Heath (Birmingham), adopted by 10 new openings monthly from February. Headquartered in Plymouth, the privately owned retailer operates round 220 websites within the UK and Eire underneath the Vary and Wilko manufacturers.
Homebase’s on-line presence will come underneath CDS’s management in early 2025, and Teneo – the administrator of the defunct chain – is searching for consumers for 49 retailers not included within the deal. Throughout the transition, these remaining shops will proceed buying and selling underneath the Homebase title.
Alex Simpkin, chief government of CDS, mentioned: “We’re fully committed to retaining the best of Homebase’s heritage while introducing the broader product range and value that customers expect from us as the Range.”
The Homebase acquisition comes on the heels of CDS’s buy of the Wilko model in September 2023, after the price range homeware retailer fell into administration. CDS has since opened seven Wilko shops, totally on excessive streets and in procuring centres, and plans additional areas subsequent yr. Nonetheless, targets to open 40 Wilko retailers this yr have been scaled again because of robust competitors within the low cost retail sector and challenges to find appropriate premises.
Business observers counsel the twin acquisitions of Wilko and Homebase might prime CDS for a inventory market debut, a step it explored however later deserted some years in the past. Simpkin says the corporate’s “substantial investments in infrastructure” have ready it for the “next phase of growth.”
He provides that the group is properly positioned financially to develop into a whole bunch of potential websites, transferring past the extra conventional retail parks favoured by the Vary to check quite a lot of retailer codecs and areas.
