British Shoe Corporation
1956 Charles Clore consolidated all of the shoe brands that his Sears group had acquired in the British Shoe Corporation.[1]
1960 Floated preferences shares in the main parts of the Sears group as British Shoe Corporation Ltd and Sears Engineering Ltd, both of which were subsidiaries of Sears Holdings [2]. Subsidiaries were[3]:
- Freeman, Hardy and Willis Ltd
- Manfield and Sons Ltd
- Dolcis Ltd
- Phillips Brothers Character Shoes Ltd
- Curtess Shoes Ltd
plus 19 insignificant subsidiaries
1962 Acquired Saxone, Lilley and Skinner, another shoe shop chain.
The Corporation comprised Trueform, Olympus Sport, Curtess, Dolcis, Manfield, Saxone, Lilley and Skinner, and Freeman, Hardy and Willis
1996 Sears sold FHM, Manfield, True Form, Saxone and Curtess to entrepreneur Stephen Hinchliffe and his business Facia. The remaining parts of British Shoe Corporation were sold by 1998, at an accounting loss of £150 million.