First Quench Retailing

First Quench Retailing

Type	Private
Founded	2008
Headquarters	Welwyn Garden City, England
Industry	Retail
Products	Alcoholic beverages
Employees	6,248
Website	www.firstquench.co.uk

First Quench Retailing is the largest independent off-licence retail chain in the UK, with around 1,200 shops operating under several retail brands. It is based in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. On 29 October 2009 it was announced that the company had entered into administration.

History

The company was originally formed as First Quench Retailing by the merger of the Whitbread owned Threshers and the Allied Domecq owned Victoria Wine in August 1998. This brought together the 1,470 Thresher Wine Shop, Drinks Cabin, Wine Rack and Huttons brands with Victoria Wine Cellars, Haddows, Martha's Vineyard, and The Firkin. Allied Domecq later sold their 50% of the company to Punch Taverns in September 1999.

In November 1991, Threshers, then owned by Whitbread alone, bought the Peter Dominic Group from Grand Metropolitan for £50m. The Bottoms Up brand of shops, formerly owned by Peter Dominic, was retained. Peter Dominic was separated from GrandMet's IDV group in 1989 to become a retail division.

The company was purchased by the Japanese private equity firm Nomura Holdings in October 2000 for £225m.

Terra Firma Capital Partners purchased the company in April 2002.

The collapse of rival retailer Unwins led to Threshers buying 200 stores, with the remaining 170 stores closing. The stores were rebranded as either 'The Local', 'Thresher' or 'Wine Rack'.^{[1] [2]}

In June 2007, Thresher Group was sold to the equity company Vision Capital for around £250 million.

Following a number of changes to branding, the company was renamed First Quench Retailing from Threshers Group.

FQR in Administration

• On 29 October 2009 it was announced that First Quench Retailing had entered into administration, and KPMG were appointed administrators.^[3][4]
• 81 redundancies were made the the companies head office in Welwyn Garden City on 30 October.^[5]
• It was announced on 5 November that 373 stores would close resulting in a further 1,783 redundancies.^[6]
• On 11 November, it was announced that another 35 staff from the head office had been made redundant.^[7]
• On 20 November, the closure of a further 381 stores was announced. This will result in 1,908 redundancies within the stores which are closing and a further 34 redundancies at FQR's head office in Welwyn Garden City.^[8]
• A further 391 stores will be closing by 20 December at the latest, as announced on 27 November. This will lead to 2,140 redundancies.^[9]

Current brands

Primarily Wine with Beer/Ale/Cider

Wine Rack (True Blue)- Customer Service and Product Knowledge driven

Value and convenience goods including Alcohol

The Local (Yellow)

Threshers (Red)

Scottish Brand, with main focus on Wine/Beer/Cider/Ale

Haddows (Purple)

Previous branding

Wine-led

Bottoms Up (offering up to 650 brands of wine in one shop)

Wine Rack

Victoria Wine

Peter Dominic

Martha's Vineyard

Drink retailing

Threshers

Drinks Cabin

(Former) Unwins

Firkin Off-Licence

Hutton's

Drink's Direct

Value driven

The Local

In Scotland

Haddows

References

See also

• Majestic Wine
• Oddbins

External links

• First Quench Retailing (www.firstquench.co.uk)
• Vision Capital (www.visioncapital.com)