Remember when, just a month after Wilkos disappeared from UK high streets, CDS Superstores (owners of The Range) swooped in to save the day? Well, it’s done it again. This time, with DIY superstore brand, Homebase.
Homebase has seen over 100 of its stores shut down since 2018 and has faced an ‘incredibly challenging’ time over the past three years. Now its brand name and intellectual property, along with up to 70 stores, was sold to CDS last week in an effort to rescue it from complete closure.
Alex Simpkin, CDS’s chief executive, said: ‘We’ve stepped in following the sad demise of the much-loved Homebase brand which has had a long and previously successful history of helping UK households with their DIY projects and gardening needs, for over 45-years.’
He said that while the Homebase brand will continue selling online, the acquired stores will eventually re-open as The Range superstores but will remain trading as Homebase for the next few months. The new stores ‘will include everything you’d expect from The Range, combined with much broader choice across garden, showroom and DIY categories – retaining the best of the Homebase expertise and heritage’.
The deal has saved up to 1,600 jobs, but the future of 49 stores and 2,000 more jobs is still unclear.
Beloved British brands and Time Out
As the custodian of British city life with all its ups and downs, Time Out has all up-to-date info about what’s closing, what’s new and everything in-between. Here’s the full list of UK high street stores closing in 2024, where the next UNIQLO store is opening, a list of all the Post Office branches at risk of closure and which TGI Friday’s are closing.
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