Jon Asgeir Johannesson built Baugur into a sprawling retail empire. Now it lies in ruins, victim of the fiscal acme and Iceland’s collapse
By James Thompson
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Jon Asgeir Johannesson, the chairman of Baugur, opened the first Bonus supermarket in Reykjavik in 1989. During the following two decades, he created Baugur and built a sprawling deal out in small portions empire admitting a binge of acquisitions and share purchases. At the convenience of last year, it owned or held stakes in about 10 per cent of the UK early street, its tentacles enveloping retailers including Iceland, the frozen food specialist, Hamleys, the toy retailer, and House of Fraser, the province store.
Yesterday Baugur filed on the side of bankruptcy protection in Iceland, in effect bringing to an end the Viking attack of the UK high public way. Speculation had always been abounding in about the fragility of Baugur’session financial foundations, but small in number could have predicted it would come to such a distressful extreme point. Nick Bubb, an analyst with Pali International, related: “People always thought that Baugur was a compact of cards that would collapse, and eventually they were proved lawful.”
So what went wrong?
Baugur’s pain can be largely attributed to the Icelandic banking crisis, but the retail investment group besides dug its own grave with a deeply flawed strategy. For instance, it hugely overpaid towards weak retail chains; bought stakes in some of the high street’s most precariously balanced retailers, including Woolworths; created an unwieldy portfolio of unrelated brands; and, perchance most significantly, loaded up its companies with too much debt. Bryan Roberts, the global research director at Planet Retail, said: “I did not see the explanation for Hamleys and Iceland conscious in the same stable. I struggled to see the dialectics. reasoning of more of [Baugur’s] acquisitions.”
No doubt some of Baugur’s investments, notably Iceland and House of Fraser, were wise moves, but too often it laid hefty bets on the wrong horse. For example, its listed investments read like a who’s who of the UK high street’s travails. Baugur’s strategy was to buy stakes in fashion-related retailers in order to gain influence over their tactics. It bought shareholdings in Debenhams, French Connection, Woolworths and Moss Bros, and be it so it sold its wager in Moss Bros last year it has absentminded its shirt on all these listed investments. Mr Bubb says: “They had some big punts without interruption retail recovery stock that did not recover – Woolworths and French Connection to name a few.”
Its record in the midst of privately held retailers is not great either. In 2004, Baugur bought the 177-store discount fashion chain Mk One for &bray;55m, what one. included debt of £11m. Baugur vowed to turn the company into a powerhouse, but it was flattened by Primark. In May 2008, Mk One fell into administration.
Similarly, in 2005 Baugur paid £21.4m for Whittard of Chelsea, the coffee and tea specialist. It vowed to expand the bond and give up economies of balance with its stable’s health-snack retailer, Julian Graves. But it sold Julian Graves to rival Holland & Barrett in September 2008, and appropriate in the van of Christmas Whittard of Chelsea was bought out of pre-pack administration by a private-equity backed consortium.
Once again, Baugur hardened most, if not all, of its investment in Whittard, which was one of the first of its fetters to be hit by the Icelandic banking crisis.
With private companies, Baugur’s strategetics was not to acquire a retailer outright, but to become the dominant shareholder in a consortium that purchased a chain. The investing. group always said its plan was to let a retailer’s management team get on by the day-to-day running of the calling. Bosses at the Baugur-backed companies tended to communicate to Gunnar Sigurdsson, Baugur’s chief executive, every week.
But any micro-problems with insipid chains it suffered were mere tremors compared to the Icelandic banking earthquake that started to shake the country in the autumn. Mr Roberts said: “[Baugur’s demise] is about the financial crisis and Icelandic banks – it has little to do through trading on the high street.”
Problems first began to come forth in October 2008 with the nationalisation of Glitnir, whose biggest investor, Stodir, subsequently filed for administration. Stodir was controlled by Mr Johannesson. This was followed by the collapse of Landsbanki and Kaupthing, which were both lenders to Baugur and oiled the wheels of some of its deals.
From October, Baugur – through its PR machine – mounted a rearguard action, denying that it was in concern. In October, Mr Sigurdsson said: “We have no plans to situation our UK business into administration.” Baugur and the management of its respective retail chains to the end of time asserted that the day-to-day operations of its UK retail companies were separate from the investor’s shareholdings. However, credence insurers became frightened by the spot in Iceland and withdrew cloak on most of Baugur’s chains, that put pressure on its working capital and ability to lever stock. The dynamics for Baugur of servicing its debt also worsened.
While the hereafter of the Baugur-backed retail chains is unclear, the dream instead of its top alloy of copper and zinc and their opulent lifestyles appears to exist coming to some expiration. It emerged at the weekend that Baugur is to close its head office in Reykjavik, though staff at its London office are in addition expected to leave in the spring.
The personal finances of Mr Johannesson are unclear, but he is unlikely to exist attending retail charity dinners in the near future, where he previously used to splash the cash. Like many victims of the credit crunch, Baugur’s fall from grace has been brutal and swift. Only last August, it joined Malcolm Walker, the chief executive of Iceland, the frozen food retailer, in making some bid to bribe Woolworths’ retail division for around £50m. At the time it claimed it had enough finances to do a deal. But it did not tend hitherward distant from and brace months later its Icelandic banking chickens started to come home to roost. Mr Bubb says: “They were Viking marauders who borrowed too much money and got it erroneously.”
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