William Low
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|
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Fate | Takeover |
| Successor | Initially rebranded as Tesco Scotland, then again to be Tesco |
| Founded | 1868 |
| Defunct | 2 September 1994 |
| Headquarters | Dundee, Scotland, UK |
|
Key people
|
Chairman - James Millar C.E.O - P.R Spicer Company Secretary - H.L Findlay |
| Products | Groceries |
|
Number of employees
|
8,981 |
William Low (popularly referred to as Willie Low's; latterly marketed as Wm Low) was a chain of supermarkets based in Dundee, Scotland, until it was bought out by Tesco for £257m in 1994.
As a group it was smaller than most of its competitors and often served small towns, although it still had several large supermarkets, including two in Dundee, and two in Perth. Most towns in the Tayside region had at least one large William Low store and it had branches throughout Scotland, North East England, Cumbria and Yorkshire. Tesco had to compete with a rival takeover bid from competitor J Sainsbury for the chain and, following the takeover, 57 of the William Low stores were converted to the Tesco fascia. Prior to this, there were only around 17 Tesco branches in Scotland.
At one stage, the company also ran a chain of frozen food stores known as Lowfreeze. Lowfreeze was sold in 1987 to Bejam, with Bejam being sold to rival Iceland in 1989.
The Company was founded by William Rettie and James Low in 1868 (The name consists of both the founder's names, one's first name and the other's surname). James's brother, William, joined the shop in 1870, taking over the business some years later.
William Rettie's grandson, Philip, joined the company in 1948, becoming managing director in 1958 and chairman in 1980.
Wm Low almost doubled in size between 1976 and 1984 with sustained expansion and increased store sizes. In 1976, Wm Low had a total of 205,000 sq ft (19,000 m2) of floor space which by 1984 had become 446,000 sq ft (41,400 m2). Wm Low also rose to be included as number 400 in the Times 1000, a list of top UK Companies in 1984, whereas in 1976 it was not even listed.
In 1984, Wm Low attempted but failed to take over Hintons, which later became part of Safeway. In 1985, Wm Low took over Laws Stores at a cost of £7.1 million. Laws had a group predominantly based in the north-east of England with a portfolio of smaller stores than Wm Low. Wm Low proceeded to close unprofitable Laws stores in 1986.
In 1989. Wm Low attempted to take over Budgens, a move described by Budgens as a friendly merger and which had looked to be a done deal. This deal ultimately collapsed.
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