page_title: Allders
section_title: Decline
hierarchical_section_title: Allders / Decline
caption_attribution_description: Croydon's main shopping street, North End, taken 5 Feb 2005
context_page_description: Allders was an independent department store operating in the United Kingdom.
  The original store was established in 1862 in Croydon by Joshua Allder. In the second half of the 20th century, this parent store was developed into a chain of department stores across England and Wales. By the turn of the millennium, the flagship store in Croydon was the third-largest department store in the United Kingdom. The chain was broken up and sold after it went into administration in 2005, although the Croydon store continued trading until 2012, having been purchased by Harold Tillman, the then-owner of the Jaeger clothing company. On 17 January 2013, the company closed the store along with the website, and the brand ceased to exist.
context_section_description: Shares in Allders crashed in 1998 after disappointing sales and difficulties integrating the Maples furniture group. Nevertheless, it continued a policy of expansion, acquiring the premises of the former C & A stores at Guildford, Kingston upon Thames, Leicester, Sheffield (Meadowhall), and York in 2000 and later the large C & A building on the south side of Oxford Street in London. The "At Home with Allders" trading name was replaced with "Allders At Home" on conversion of a number of the C&A stores to an expanded home format. Problems continued, however. In Croydon, there were plans to build a new shopping centre, Park Place, on the store's site and much of the area to the south. A new Allders would be built opposite the Town Hall. Croydon Council's partner in this plan was developer Minerva plc. In late 2002 Minerva was part of a new group called Scarlett Retail, named after Terry Green's daughter, that bid for Allders, with Lehman Brothers investment bank and a management team including Terry Green, the former chief executive of Debenhams and BHS.
  Some felt at the time that Scarlett's bid was based on Minerva's intention to acquire Allders' site for its Park Place project, in order to sell the plot to another retailer, probably John Lewis. The bid was felt by many to be overpriced. Nevertheless, Scarlett paid Tom Hunter an improved price and they landed the company in early 2003 for about £162m ($316m). Green became chief executive and set about an overhaul of Allders' image. It was claimed that some of the traditional homeware, haberdashery and clothing for middle-aged, middle-income women was reduced, with a new emphasis on young fashion and beauty products, though this was denied by Terry Green.
caption: North End and Allders in 2005
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