Halfords

History

The company was founded by Frederick Rushbrooke in Birmingham in 1892 as a wholesale ironmongery. In 1902, Rushbrooke moved to a store on Halford Street in Leicester, and the company was named after this street, and started selling cycling goods.

It opened its 200th store in 1931, and purchased the Birmingham Bicycle Company in 1945. In 1968, it opened its 300th store.

The company became a part of Burmah Oil in 1965, following a takeover battle between Burmah and Smiths Industries. During this time, Denis Thatcher, husband of the future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was a non-executive director.

The company was acquired by Ward White Group in 1983 and subsequently acquired by the Boots Group in 1991. In July 2002, it was then taken over by CVC Capital Partners, and in June 2004, it was floated on the London Stock Exchange. In 2003, Halfords dropped the blue, white and red branding, in favour of a new black and orange logo. However, the 'new' logo had been used since the previous year, but it did not come into effect until 2003.

On 11 July 2005, Halfords entered into a Collaboration Agreement with Autobacs Seven Co., a Japan-based car accessory retailer with chains of stores all over the world and who is best known in other countries that do not have an Autobacs store for being the title sponsorship of Super GT and D1 Grand Prix. On 13 December 2005 Autobacs acquired 5% (11,400,000 shares) of the company at approximately ¥7.5 billion.

In 2007, Halfords opened its first shop in Central Europe, in a village near Prague. In the next two years, it opened five more stores in the Czech Republic and one in Poland (Wrocław, 2008). Expansion into Central Europe was seen as an opportunity because the cars on the road tend to be slightly older there, so people would be more adept at car maintenance. However, in 2010 it terminated these activities already, after the losses made in the initial years were deemed too high and a new management wanted to focus on the domestic market.

On 18 February 2010, the company announced a deal to purchase the Nationwide Autocentre MOT chain, from the private equity firm Phoenix. The plan was to rebrand the centres under the Halfords name, and open another 200. As of April 2015, there are over 250 Halfords Autocentre garages dealing with MOTs, car repairs and servicing.

In June 2014, Halfords acquired the British bicycle manufacturer Boardman Bikes Ltd. (founded by the professional cyclist Chris Boardman, Sarah Mooney and Alan Ingarfield) for undisclosed sum.

In March 2015, it was announced that on 11 May, Jill McDonald, head of McDonald's UK since 2010, would replace Matt Davies (who was leaving to join Tesco), as CEO.

Operations

Today, Halfords has two business units: Halfords Retail (the original chain of shops) and Halfords Autocentres.

Since 2010, Halfords Retail has operated around 465 stores, of which about 22 are in the Republic of Ireland and the others in the United Kingdom.

The group use the following sub-brands as part of their portfolio: Boardman Bikes, 13 Bikes, Carrera bicycles, Apollo, Voodoo, Victoria Pendelton, Urban Escape, Exodus, Pampero, Halfords essentials, Sealskins, X-rated

Sponsorship

The team won the BTCC overall Drivers Championship in 2005 and 2006, with driver Matt Neal. In 2007, Halfords sponsored the Team Dynamics BTCC racing team under the name of Team Halfords and in 2008, Halfords started sponsoring a mixed professional bike team, Team Halfords Bikehut, headed by Nicole Cooke, which disbanded ahead of the 2010 season.