Republic was a clothing

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

er with 121 stores in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. In February 2013, it entered administration, and was purchased by

Sports Direct International Frasers Group plc (formerly known as Sports Direct International plc) is a British retail, sport and intellectual property group, named after its ownership of the department store chain House of Fraser. The company is best known for trading pr ...

. Republic was merged into Sports Direct's USC brand.

History

Founded in 1985, as Just Jeans, after 1990, the name changed to Best Jeanswear; Republic was launched in 1998. It was a private

limited company In a limited company, the Legal liability, liability of members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by Share (finance), shares or by guarantee. In a c ...

(Republic (Retail) Ltd.) and, in 2005, Change Capital invested in the company to finance expansion plans. In May 2011 the company was bought by

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

firm

TPG Capital TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American private equity firm based in Fort Worth, Texas. TPG manages investment funds in growth capital, venture capital, public equity, and debt investments. The firm in ...

for £300m

Administration and acquisition

Republic filed for

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...

on 13 February 2013, with

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

appointed administrators. 150 head office staff were immediately made

redundant Redundancy or redundant may refer to: Language * Redundancy (linguistics), information that is expressed more than once Engineering and computer science * Data redundancy, database systems which have a field that is repeated in two or more table ...

, leaving 2,500 jobs at risk. During the administration time, a total of 8 Republic stores closed, 5 in Scotland, with a further 2 closed in Northern Ireland and one in

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ), colloquially known as Boro, is a port town in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Lying to the south of the River Tees, Middlesbrough forms part of the Teesside Built up area, built-up area and the Tees Va ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. On 28 February 2013,

Sports Direct Sportsdirect.com Retail Limited, trading as Sports Direct, is a British retail company owned by Frasers Group. The company was founded in 1982 by Mike Ashley (businessman), Mike Ashley and was originally based in Maidenhead, England. It specialises ...

bought 114 Republic stores, the brand name, all remaining stock and own-brands including SoulCal, Crafted and Fabric from the administrators. The Republic head office was also purchased. Sports Direct attempted to negotiate a reduction in rent for a number of stores, but the proposal was rejected by its landlords for those stores:

Intu Intu Properties plc was a British real estate investment trust (REIT), largely focused on shopping centre management and development. Originally named Transatlantic Insurance Holdings plc and later Liberty International plc, it changed its name ...

and

Land Securities Land Securities Group plc, trading as Landsec, is the largest commercial property development and investment company in the United Kingdom. The firm became a real estate investment trust (REIT) when REITs were introduced in the United Kingdom i ...

. As a result, 20 stores were closed. The remaining Republic stores were subsequently merged with USC.

Position

The company was positioned in the mass sector of the

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...

market, and had a focus on young

fashion Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, Fashion accessory, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into Clothing, outfits that depict distinct ...

lines were stocked from casual brands including Bench, Fenchurch,

G-Star Raw G-Star RAW (commonly called G-Star) is a Dutch designer clothing company, founded by Jos van Tilburg in Amsterdam in 1989. The brand specializes in making raw denim—an unwashed, untreated denim. G-Star is influenced by military clothing. Ins ...

American Apparel American Apparel Inc. is a North American clothing retailer. The brand began with operating retail stores between the late 1980s and late 2010s. Its operations are based in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Canadian businessman Dov Charney in ...

, Henleys and Drunknmunky, as well as own brands SoulCal & Co, Miso, Crafted, Fabric, and ex-brand White Label. Before entering administration, Republic introduced a new own-branded line, @Republic, which transferred to USC.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom Clothing retailers of the United Kingdom Defunct companies based in Leeds Retail companies established in 1985 Retail companies disestablished in 2013 1985 establishments in the United Kingdom 2013 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Companies that have entered administration in the United Kingdom Sports Direct