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Bejam

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Bejam Group plc
Company typePrivate
Founded1968
Defunct1989
SuccessorIceland
HeadquartersStanmore, England,
United Kingdom
ProductsGroceries

Bejam was a British frozen food supermarket chain founded by John Apthorp in 1968, based in Stanmore, London. The business grew to become the biggest frozen food retailer and largest seller of freezers and microwaves in Britain.[1] The business was purchased by smaller rival, Iceland, in a hostile takeover in 1989.

History

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The concept of selling only frozen foods was a novel idea in 1968. John Apthorp, worked for E. A. D. Apthorp, his family firm of potato merchants, who were bought out by the Ross Group in 1968. Apthorp did not like working within the larger organisation, so left and opened a single store in Edgware as Bejam Bulk Buying in 1968 selling frozen foods.[2][3][4] The name, Bejam was an acronym for Brian, Eric, John and Milly and Marion, the names of the Apthorp family members.[5][6][3] At the time Britain was behind continental Europe in freezer ownership with less than 1% of households owning one, but by 1973 it had grown to around 2 million homes.[2][7] By 1973, Bejam had expanded to 72 stores, not just selling frozen food but also freezers themselves, a pioneer in the marketplace, while in the same year it became listed on the London Stock Exchange.[8][9] The company had many subsidiaries supplying frozen food to the business, including the jointly owned Meatpak Hampshire.[10] Bejam would also buy 50% of Smeets Diepvries, B.V., a Netherlands wholesale distributor of frozen foods in 1973, eventually opening three Bejam stores in the Netherlands.[11] In 1974, the company opened a new jointly owned 3,300,000-square-foot (310,000 m2) cold store in Milton Keynes with the National Freight Corporation.[12]

The company grew very quickly during the 1970s, and by 1978 they had grown to 147 stores with 463,000-square-foot (43,000 m2) of sales space making £2.34 million of profit on £44.23 million turnover.[13] The appliances division joined up with Barclays Bank in 1976 to offer customers credit on fridges and freezers sold in store.[14] Bejam continued to grow, and in 1979 announced record profits of £6.04 million,[3] and had continued to grow in the interim profits report of 1980 to £4.1 million, with the company's share price sitting at 59p.[15] The company diversified in 1979 by purchasing 38 restaurants from EMI for £4.78 million, mostly operating under Wimpy and Tennessee Pancake fascias, and announced plans to open a fast food chain called Trumps, with the first branch opening in Romford.[3][16][17] However, the fast food experiment failed, with 22 of the branches sold in 1980,[15] and in 1981 the business withdrew from the market with a write-down of £1.9 million. It didn't however affect the company's profits, with the company generating pre-tax profits of £9 million.[18] On the freezer shop front, Bejam purchased seven supermarket sites from BAT for £1.37 million in 1980,[19] and 16 freezer centres owned by Fine Fare.[20]

By 1982, the company turnover had on food sales alone had grown to £208 million.[21] In 1984, the company opened its 200th store in Woodley, Berkshire with a ceremony with Anne, Princess Royal and her then husband Mark Phillips.[22] The firm went head to head with Iceland in 1985, to purchase twelve of the failed freezer food chain Orchard Foods, but lost out to a £910,000 bid by the rival chain which saw Iceland gain its first stores in Bejam's territory.[23] By 1986, this had grown to 226 freezer centres, and this was further enhanced by the purchase of 45 Victor Value stores from Tesco in 1986.[24] John Adthorp had contacted Malcolm Walker of Iceland, in 1986 about purchasing the business, which he still held 30% of shares, but nothing further happened after initial conversations.[23] In 1987, the business expanded with the purchases of Lowfreeze, the freezer shop brand of Scottish supermarket chain, Wm Low, nine of the former Sainsbury's Freezer Centres and retailer Wizard Wine.[25][26][27] The company's shares rose from 158p to 210p on rumours that both Iceland and Hazelwood Foods were lining up bids, and it was announced that John Adthorp had handed over day-to-day running of the business to Timothy How.[28][29] The Iceland link was very true, with Adthorp and Walker agreeing a price of 230p per share, however the Bejam board could not agree on the deal and Adthorp would not guarantee to sell his shares to Iceland if he received a higher bid.[23]

In 1988, Iceland made a hostile takeover bid for Bejam, initially in a share offer worth 123p a share at a total of £240 million. Apthorp had stated the offer was inadequate and substantially and undervalues Bejam, with Walker criticising Bejam for not issuing a profit forecast.[30] Iceland then amended their offer to include part cash part share at 187p, but the market were failed to be impressed with Bejam's share price dropping to 170p, and Adthorp said he would not accept the offer.[31] On the 30 December, Lloyd's Bank, the registrar for the share offer declared that 50.09% of the shareholders in Bejam had accepted the offer.[23]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Brian Kenny, Edward C Lea (1984). Bejam. University of Huddersfield.
  2. ^ a b Laurence Don (1 January 1974). "The Kitchen Revolution: How Bejam makes Housewives Freezer Conscious". Retail and Distribution Management. 2 (1): 11–13. doi:10.1108/eb017764.
  3. ^ a b c d "Bejam comes in from the cold". The Financial Times. 12 October 1979. p. 8.
  4. ^ Lionel Faraday Gray (1975). "Bejam plc". Jane's Major Companies of Europe. McGraw-Hill. p. B-114. ISBN 978-0-354-00514-2.
  5. ^ Rodney Dale, Steve Puttick (1997). The Wordsworth Dictionary of Abbreviations and Acronyms. Wordsworth Editions. p. 18. ISBN 9781853263859.
  6. ^ Leslie Dunkling (1993). The Guinness Book of Names. Guinness. p. 210. ISBN 9780851125954.
  7. ^ "Weekend Shoparound". 22 April 1978. p. 24.
  8. ^ "Bulk-buying leads to bulk-selling of shares". Workers Press. 28 June 1973. p. 11.
  9. ^ "International Frozen Foods". The Financial Times. 23 June 1976.
  10. ^ "Bejam seeks more 1 shop sites". The Financial Times. 24 August 1973.
  11. ^ "Bejam Group plc". Jane's Major Companies of Europe. S. Low, Marston & Company. 1976. p. B-90.
  12. ^ "Bejam refundings". The Times. 9 December 1974. p. 17.
  13. ^ "Rapid expansion of Bejam mitigates half-time setback". The Times. 23 March 1978. p. 26.
  14. ^ "CBI proposals to directors". The Financial Times. 25 June 1976. p. 1.
  15. ^ a b "Bejam. It may slow down". The Times. 20 March 1980. p. 29.
  16. ^ "Bejam acquires EMI restaurants for £4.8 million". The Financial Times. 2 June 1979. p. 20.
  17. ^ "Bejam pays £5 million for EMI restaurant chain". The Financial Times. 13 March 1979. p. 33.
  18. ^ "Bejam. Eating Humble Pie". The Times. 7 October 1981. p. 23.
  19. ^ "Bejam. Margins maintained". The Times. 8 October 1980.
  20. ^ Parliamentary Papers Volume 40. H.M. Stationery Office. 1982. p. 67.
  21. ^ "Bejam". Investors Chronicle & Financial World. 1982. p. 255.
  22. ^ "Bejam Memories". Facebook. 2018.
  23. ^ a b c d Malcolm Walker (2013). Best Served Cold. Icon Books. ISBN 9781848317017.
  24. ^ "Bejam". Management Services. 30: 38. 1986.
  25. ^ "History - About". Majestic.co.uk. Archived from the original on 15 March 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  26. ^ Sparks. L (1 October 1995). "Restructuring Scottish grocery retailing: the rise and demise of Shoprite and Wm Low". International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 23 (10): 28–36. doi:10.1108/09590559510102469.
  27. ^ "Sale of Independent Freezer Centres" press release, 18 Aug 1987". Sainsbury's Archive. Retrieved 3 April 2024.
  28. ^ "Indexes soar to records as buyers rush for bargains". The Times. 2 June 1987. p. 22.
  29. ^ "Bejam boardroom reshuffle strengthens takeover talk". The Times. 6 June 1987. p. 2.
  30. ^ "Iceland on new attack on Bejam". The Times. 12 December 1988.
  31. ^ "Bejam rebuff for Iceland sweetener". The Times. 2 December 1988.

Bibliography

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  • Adrian Room, Corporate Eponymy: A Biographical Dictionary of the Persons Behind the Names, Page 17, McFarland & Co, 1992, ISBN 0-89950-679-8
  • Adrian Room, Dictionary of Trade Name Origins, Page 38, Routledge, 1982, ISBN 0-7102-0174-5
  • David Boylan, Antony Head, Corporate Finance: Principles & Practice, Page 314, Pearson Education, 2007, ISBN 0-273-70644-6
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