Bench (clothing)

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Bench Limited

logo
legal form Private Company (Ltd.)
founding 1989
Seat Manchester
Number of employees 400
sales 150 million euros including licenses (2013)
Branch Textile industry
Website bench.co.uk

Bench (spelling: Bench. ) Is an originally British fashion brand that is sold worldwide . Bench was founded in 1989 with the holding company Americana International Limited in Manchester and primarily sells streetwear for a young target group.

In the founding phase, Americana International, which also owned the Hooch brand, which was discontinued in 2009 , mainly sold t-shirts in BMX and skateboard style for men. Over the years, the company expanded into other areas of the fashion segment and established itself as an “urban lifestyle brand for men, women and children”. The company's trademarks are hoodies and hooded jackets in various designs, often with a large logo.

2003 Americana International was one under outs Management buy- out of the British investment company ISIS (now Living Bridge EP / VC LLP ) for 20 million pounds purchased. In 2007, London-based private equity firm Hg Capital Americana International took over for £ 190 million. In the mid-2000s, a partnership began with the Canadian distributor Freemark Apparel Brands (FAB Inc.) from Montreal via the distribution of the Bench brand in Canada and the USA.

As of February 2014, the owner of Americana International, and thus the Bench brand, was the German private equity company Emeram Capital Partners from Munich, founded in 2012 . From 2014, the former Hugo Boss and Escada manager Bruno Sälzer headed the Bench company. In 2011 Bench had sales of £ 150 million and a profit of £ 18.3 million. In 2016 it was £ 53 million in sales with a loss of £ 20 million. By 2015, following restructuring measures, the company closed most of its in-house stores and, for example, only ran 20 outlet stores in Great Britain and a few stores in Germany, for example in Hamburg (closed in 2017) and Frankfurt am Main (former German locations included Cologne , Munich and Berlin , among others etc.) and 13 outlets. In 2016, the company was unable to supply its retailers due to logistical problems, which resulted in a loss of 6.1 million euros and lost retailers. In March 2018, Sälzer withdrew from the daily business at Bench. Its 15 percent stake in the subsidiary Emeram Urbanics Holding Ltd. Sälzer nevertheless noted which bench in the Emeram portfolio belonged to.

At the end of April 2018, bankruptcy proceedings against Bench Ltd. opened, which also affected the German subsidiary. At that time there were 20 outlets in Great Britain, 12 in Germany and two each in Austria and the Netherlands.

In July 2018 it was announced that the US-American holding company Gordon Brothers from Boston had bought the British Bench Ltd. and takes over all Bench trademark rights.
The Bench International GmbH and the Bench International Retail GmbH in Munich were handled , the stores closed. At the beginning of 2018, around 170 Bench employees were employed in Germany and Great Britain.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Munich KMS team pushes brand development of Bench horizont.net, March 11, 2011
  2. ↑ "The hoodie will never be out" welt.de, February 3, 2017
  3. ↑ A hoodie instead of a shirt: Bad Rappenauer wants to make Bench successful again, Stimme.de, 26 September 2017
  4. ↑ Hg Capital increases at Americana Int. from - Emeram takes over the fashion label Bench , vc-magazin.de, March 3, 2014
  5. ↑ Hg Capital set to snap up Americana brands , telegraph.co.uk, March 3, 2007
  6. ↑ Distributor went abroad to bring brands like Bench to Canada theglobeandmail.com, July 14, 2016
  7. ↑ Bruno Sälzer buys 15% of the fashion brand Bench and becomes CEO and Chairman , emeram.com, June 30, 2014
  8. ↑ a b Failed Bench boss Bruno Sälzer: "I thought it would be easier" stern.de, May 4, 2018
  9. ↑ Sales fall below £ 100m at fashion brand Bench insidermedia.com, April 16, 2015
  10. ↑ Bench reports insolvency at fashionunited.de, May 1, 2018
  11. ↑ Exclusive: Bruno Sälzer resigns as head of the Bench fashion brand . In: Capital.de . March 19, 2018 ( capital.de [accessed April 24, 2018]).
  12. ↑ The British cult fashion label Bench is insolvent; nordbayern.de, accessed May 3, 2018
  13. ↑ British cult fashion label Bench is broke handelsblatt.com, May 2, 2018
  14. ↑ see also spiegel.de July 23, 2018: Bench closes shops and companies in Germany
  15. ↑ Gordon Brothers acquires the Bench brand and all related intellectual property rights prnewswire.com, July 5, 2018
  16. ^ Out for German Bench subsidiary textilwirtschaft.de, July 6, 2018