By HELEN COMPSON

Last updated at 10:59, Friday, 14 May 2010

JUST 24 hours before the administrators were called in, Vergo owner David Thompson was adamant Robb’s was riding the crest of a retail wave.

It was quite simply thriving, he said for the third time in as many weeks during telephone calls with Courant reporters.

But who is the man who has twice built up multi-million pound department store chains and twice called in the receivers in the space of just three years?

Well, he came with impeccable credentials when he took over Owen Owen, parent company of Liverpool’s iconic department store, Lewis’s, in 2004.

He bought the company, in fact, from his one-time employer and subsequent business partner, Philip Green – the billionaire owner of household names such as BHS and Topshop.

Thompson had cut his teeth in Green’s empire, becoming by turn director of Mothercare, Habitat and BHS.

In a separate business deal, in 2003 Thompson and fellow director Elaine McPherson bought out 90 per cent of Philip Green’s stake in MK One, the low-cost clothing chain formerly called Mark One, for between £30m and £40m.

The following year the pair sold the 177 stores on to Icelandic group Baugur for £55 million, complete with £11m in debts.

Elaine McPherson went on to buy the 276 stores in the Ethel Austin clothing chain and the homeware retailer Au Naturale – she took both chains into administration in February.

In 2005 David Thompson, at the helm of Owen Owen, paid £8million for Robb’s and its sister store, Jopling’s of Sunderland.

In a move that surprised many, he then sold what was regarded as one of the company’s biggest assets – Robb’s premises on Fore Street – to Scottish property company Buccleuch Group for £7.7million.

When Owen Owen went into administration in May 2007, the Courant asked Mr Thompson where that money had gone. He replied his company owed £6.8million to creditors and the VAT man.

Just weeks later, Mr Thompson formed Vergo Retail and bought back Robb’s, Joplings and Lewis’s. However, his fourth store, Esslemont and Macintosh in Aberdeen, closed with the loss of 107 jobs.

Last year, Vergo Retail went on a major shopping spree of its own.

In March it bought Plymouth department store Derry’s and four Homemaker stores in Devon and Cornwall, and then three months later 12 former Co-operative stores in East Anglia.

While 20 stores introduced the economies of scale, Mr Thompson also found the over-staffed, bloated business dealings of the former Co-op stores presented more of a problem than he originally anticipated.

The fat needed trimming, and fast, he admitted.

In March it was announced Lewis’s was being forced to close, with the loss of 300 jobs, because the premises it leased was part of a £160 million redevelopment programme in the heart of Liverpool.

That left Vergo with another 19 stores, 942 staff and a healthy turnover in excess of £50m a year, said Mr Thompson.

First published at 09:48, Friday, 14 May 2010
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk

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