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DSG Plans to Restore Dixons Name for Brand Power After Five Years in Cold
DSG International Plc, the U.K.’s biggest consumer-electronics retailer, plans to restore the Dixons name, which it dropped in 2005 after 68 years.
From September, DSG will be known as Dixons Retail Plc, the Hemel Hempstead, England-based company said today. The change will “harness the powers of the Dixons brand that resonates strongly with stakeholders, particularly suppliers,” Chief Executive Officer John Browett said on a conference call.
DSG began as a Dixons photography studio in Southend, England in 1937 and built up a chain of 320 electronics stores, which it scaled back in 2004 and renamed Currys.digital in 2006. Since then, the Dixons name has been used for online retailing and nothing will change for customers, Browett said.
“The reality is the stakeholders all refer to us as Dixons, so to make it a bit easier and simpler, we’ve gone back to that name,” he said. “It’s a corporate simplification.”
DSG today reported its first annual profit in three years after upgrading more than 200 stores across the group since 2008. About two-thirds of the retailer’s U.K. stores will have been transformed by October, and profitability at remodeled outlets in the U.K. is up about 20 percent, DSG said today.
The company plans to reduce its number of stores in the U.K. to about 500 from 654 “over time” as it combines more Currys and PC World outlets under a single roof. The so-called megastores are proving popular with customers and delivering profit increases of about 50 percent, DSG said.
‘Challenging Conditions’
DSG fell 0.36 penny, or 1.3 percent, to 27.14 pence at 11 a.m. in London trading. The stock has dropped 25 percent this year, after almost tripling in 2009.
The retailer, which has businesses in Italy, Greece, Spain, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey and Scandinavia, said it expects “challenging” conditions to continue in many of its markets, where consumer spending “is likely to come under pressure from fiscal tightening.”
Earnings from the U.K. and Ireland, the source of almost half DSG’s revenue, rose to 71.1 million pounds ($106.6 million) in the year ended May 1 from 58.7 million pounds a year earlier. Profit in the Nordic countries, where DSG owns the Elkjop chain, climbed to 97.4 million pounds from 76.1 million pounds.
Net income was 59.8 million pounds compared with a loss of 219.4 million pounds in the previous year.
To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Jarvis at pjarvis@bloomberg.net; Sarah Shannon in London at sshannon4@bloomberg.net.
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