Gap Inc.

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Gap Inc.

logo
legal form Corporation
ISIN US3647601083
founding August 21, 1969
Seat San Francisco , USA
management Sonia Syngal ( CEO )
Number of employees 129,000 (2019)
sales $ 16.38 billion (2019)
Branch textiles
Website www.gapinc.com
As of December 31, 2019

Company logo from 1986 to 2016
The headquarters of Gap Inc. in San Francisco in March 2010

Gap Inc. is the largest US clothing retailer with headquarters in San Francisco . Gap, Inc. operates around 3,300 of the approx. 3,700 stores of the various brands in the USA, Canada, Great Britain, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan and China itself; the rest is given to franchisees in Asia, Australia, Eastern Europe, South America, Africa and the Middle East.

Gap's commitment to the German market, which began in 1988, was given up in 2004 and resumed in December 2014 through a collaboration with the German online retailer Zalando .

history

Gap was founded in 1969 by Doris and Donald G. Fisher . The name is derived from the differences between children and parents ("the generation gap"), known in German as the generation conflict. Initially, brands such as Levi's were sold. But the Fishers felt more and more that the demand for good customer service and fashionable clothing was not being met. Therefore, in 1982 they started to design and market their own ideas. In 1983 Millard 'Mickey' Drexler was hired as CEO. In 1986 children's clothing was added to clothing for women and men under the name Gap Kids . Baby clothing followed with Baby Gap in 1990. Gap has not sold any third-party brands since 1990. Under Drexler, Gap, Inc. sales grew from around $ 400 million in the early 1980s to $ 1.6 billion in 1989 to nearly $ 14 billion in 2001. Today, Gap apparel offers accessories and footwear for all ages and ages Genders.

Robert J. Fisher , Donald's son, took over as Chairman of the Board in 2004 . Fisher fired Drexler in 2002 when sales stagnated and instead installed Disney manager Paul S. Pressler. Because Pressler was unable to increase sales, he had to leave in 2007. Pressler was followed by the Canadian Glenn Murphy, who handed over the board position to the Gap manager and former Boston Consulting Group partner, Art Peck, in 2015 . Peck left the company in early November 2019 due to disappointing earnings and was temporarily replaced by Robert Fisher. The Fisher family owns more than 25% of the company. There are more than 900 Gap stores and outlets in the United States; in Canada there are another 120 gap stores.

On February 28, 2019, Gap Inc. announced the planned split of the company by 2020. Thereafter, a separate company will be created with the Old Navy brand , and another company with the temporary name NewCo will combine the brands Gap, Banana Republic, Athleta, Hill City and Intermix. In addition, around 230 of around 3,650 branches will be closed. Gap Inc. is present in around 40 countries worldwide.

International expansion from 1987

The company began international expansion in 1987 with a gap business in London . Today Gap, Inc. operates around 200 of its own Gap and Banana Republic stores in Europe. There are also over 30 European locations maintained by franchisees. In 2015, the Group operated self-operated gap stores in Europe in four countries : Great Britain (over 140 branches), Ireland (4 ×), France (33 ×, 20 of which in Paris) and Italy (9 ×). With the exception of France, gap outlets are also operated in these countries . In addition, there were nine of its own Banana Republic branches in Great Britain (7 × in London and one store each in Manchester and Bath), so that Gap, Inc. operates around 200 of its own stores in Europe. Other European markets are served via its own European online shop for the Gap and Banana Republic brands . The first Banana Republic store outside the USA was opened in Tokyo in 2005, and a franchise branch opened in Seoul in 2007. Shops in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Turkey followed, which are also operated by franchise partners. In 2008 the first Banana Republic branch in Europe was opened in London. Banana Republic has existed in Paris since 2011.

Gap stores were opened in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Croatia in the following years via a franchise agreement signed with the Greek Marinopoulos Group in 2008 . The shops in Bucharest were closed again in 2014. In 2011, Gap opened up the Polish market with its first shop in Warsaw through a local franchisee. Outside of North America and Europe, Gap, Inc. only has self-operated branches in Japan (around 170 stores) and China. Gap stores are maintained through other franchisees in numerous other countries - and in some countries also Banana Republic stores, e.g. in Morocco, Egypt, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Thailand, Israel, Chile, Brazil, Australia or South Africa.

Gap in Germany

In 1988 the first German Gap store opened in Essen and was closed again in the same year. From 1996 onwards, successive Gap branches in Düsseldorf, Oberhausen, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich, Aachen and Berlin were established in Germany. At the end of the 1990s there were plans to operate around 500 Gap stores in Germany over the long term. From 2002, there was also Old Navy and Banana Republic sales areas in Karstadt branches and in KaDeWe in Berlin for a short time . The engagement in Germany ended in 2004 due to difficulties in establishing itself in the German market with the sale of all eight remaining Gap branches to the largest European competitor Hennes & Mauritz (H&M). At the end of 2014, Gap, Inc. decided to re-enter the German market after around 10 years through a cooperation with Zalando via their online shop from May 2015 . In addition, Gap expects the collaboration to expand its activities in the 14 European countries that Zalando supplies.

Gap in Austria

After it was announced in the mid-1990s that Gap would also be established on the Austrian market , Gap 's start in Austria did not really make progress in the following years, partly because a dispute arose among franchisees about the market launch. After the first gap shop was opened in Vienna's 19th district at the end of 2001 and two mini-branches were built next to it, between four and five more branches were planned. The Gap engagement in Austria ended for the time being in 2003. In the summer of 2014, a Gap store operated by an Israeli franchisee opened in the Donau Zentrum .

Brands

Today, in addition to Gap, five other brands belong to the Gap Group:

Banana Republic

Banana Republic logo
  • The company Banana Republic , founded in 1978 by Mel and Patricia Ziegler in San Francisco , which today sells more expensive and elegant fashion for women and men in the Gap Group, was bought up in 1983. The brand's original Safari theme was retained until 1989 . In the meantime, the portfolio has been expanded to include shoes, jewelry, glasses and perfume for women and men; Children's clothing is not part of the range. There are around 600 Banana Republic stores and outlets in the US ; in Canada almost 40.

Old Navy

Old Navy logo
  • Old Navy was launched in 1994 to cover the lower price segment for women's, men's and children's clothing. The first Old Navy stores were built in outlet malls and the interiors were similar to warehouses. The name goes back to a bar in Paris that Drexler had previously visited. Under this brand, Gap, Inc. operates more than 1,000 stores in the United States and around 100 in Canada.

Athleta

  • Founded in 1998, online mail order company for women's sportswear, Athleta , was acquired by Gap, Inc. in 2008. In 2011, the first Athleta store opened in San Francisco; In 2015 there were over 100 Athleta stores in the United States.

Hill City

  • In 2018, Gap Inc. launched Hill City , the men's counterpart to Athleta , also with a view to competitors such as Lululemon Athletica . The sports and fitness clothing for men was sold exclusively through its own website until the end of 2019. Since then there has been a temporary shop in San Francisco, product areas in selected Athleta stores and a collaboration with a few external retailers.

Intermix

  • In 2013, Gap, Inc. took over the multi-brand retailer Intermix for upscale womenswear, which was founded in New York in 1993 and operates over 35 stores and an online shop in the USA and Canada , for $ 130 million .

discontinued brands:

  • In 2004, the Forth & Towne brand was launched in the USA , targeting women over 35 years of age. However, the last of the Forth & Towne stores was closed in late August 2007 and the brand thus discontinued.
  • In 2006, Gap, Inc. established the online retailer Piperlime , whose range was expanded from initially shoes and accessories to clothing for women and men. As of the end of 2012, Piperlime's only shop was in New York's SoHo district . Gap, Inc. dissolved Piperlime , which generated less than $ 100 million in annual sales, in April 2015 to focus on the company's core brands.

criticism

After an international media campaign about poor working conditions, Gap became the first large US company in 1995 to agree to be independently monitored.

At the end of October 2007, the British newspaper The Observer reported on child labor in New Delhi. A company spokesman announced that tens of thousands of items of clothing would be withdrawn from sales.

At the counter-event to the World Economic Forum , Public Eye on Davos , GAP was awarded a negative prize by the expert jury in 2014 for its refusal to cooperate in reforms in the Bangladesh textile industry .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Annual Report 2019. In: https://investors.gapinc.com/financial-information/default.aspx#financial-year . Retrieved June 6, 2020 .
  2. Gap, Inc .: Key Facts ( Memento of the original from October 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , gapinc.com, accessed May 19, 2015  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gapinc.com
  3. ^ Gap Inc. Announces Plan to Separate Into Two Independent Publicly Traded Companies. In: corporate.gapinc.com. February 28, 2019, accessed March 1, 2019 .
  4. # 93; = 181174 The withdrawal: Gap gives up ( memento of the original from November 26, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , textilwirtschaft.de, February 12, 2004  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.textilwirtschaft.de
  5. Handelsblatt: Gap returns to the German market thanks to Zalando , November 27, 2014.
  6. dispute over fashion giant Gap in Austria ( Memento of 20 December 2015, Internet Archive ), accessed on December 6, 2015
  7. GAP: Quiet Start in Austria , accessed on December 6, 2015
  8. The End of Piperlime: Gap Wants Only Extra-Large Brands , bloomberg.com, January 27, 2015
  9. Gap drops Piperlime to focus on fixing its major brands , fortune.com, January 23, 2015
  10. Stern: Ten-year-old slave labor for US fashion chain , October 29, 2007.