ONE of Scotland’s leading retail companies has ousted three of the four-strong management team that led a private equity-backed buyout of the business in September 2006.
Ossian Retail Group, which operates more than 80 Au Naturale homewares stores in out-of-town locations and 70 Internaçionale women’s fashion stores in city centres in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north of England, is struggling to maintain profitability amid tough trading conditions.
Senior executives who have left the business include the chief executive, Norrie Stewart, who is understood to have departed in November. His 18% stake has been redistributed to other shareholders, including the Glasgow-based Penta Capital which provided most of the £10m of equity for the leveraged buyout. Other departures include the logistics director, Graham Clements, and the operations director, Gerard Gavan. Each owned stakes of 8.3% in the business and are understood to have left in August.
Ossian Retail Group is mid-way through a £14m rebranding of its stores and recently invested in a new 150,000 sq ft distribution hub for the Au Naturale brand at Eurocentral business park in Lanarkshire.
A store opening plan that could have doubled the number to 300 is said to have been reined in. The group is now run by non-executive chairman, David Brock, formerly of the furniture retailer MFI, and two divisional managing directors, Neil Allan and Mark Evans. The sole survivor of the management team behind the £45m buyout is the finance director, David Milton.
Profits fell to £5m in the latest published results, and are expected to fall further in the current period. Turnover is about £130m.
This article was published in The Sunday Times on 6 January 2008.