Homebase History

Homebase was founded originally in 1979 by Sainsburys and Belgian retailer GB-Inno-BM as Homebase. Sainsbury's then sold the Homebase chain in December 2000 in a deal worth £969 million. Sales of the  stores was made to venture capitalist Schroder Ventures  for £750 million and a further sale of 28 development sites, were sold for £219 million to B&Q parent company Kingfisher plc. In November 2002 homebase was sold to GUS plc for 900 million. In October 2006, GUS completed a demerger and Homebase and Argos floated on the LSE as the Home Retail Group.

Financial Results Year Ended 3rd March 2012.

Sales dropped to £1,536.4 million resulting in an operating profit of £232.8 million (down 50%). At the year end there were 341 stores.

Financial Results year ended 27/02/2010.

For the Home Retail Group sales were up 2% to £6,023m and Benchmark operating profit was down 4% to £290m, with a decline of £37m or 12% at Argos and an increase of £26m or 177% at Homebase. Homebase made sales of £1,571.9 million (£1,513.2 million 2008) and a Profit of £26m a 177% increase at Homebase. Sales in the 52 weeks to 27 February 2010 increased by 3.9% in total and the contribution to sales from net new space was 1.2%, while like-for-like sales increased by 2.7%. A net four new Homebase stores were opened during the year and there were six openings and two closures,taking homebase to 349 stores. No openings are planned in the next financial year.

Homebase Retail and Online Website Products Range.

During 2009/2010 Homebase achieved its target of over 30,000 product lines being browseable via homebase.co.uk. Some 10,000 of these being transactional which is double the level a year earlier. The ‘Stock Check’ service was rolled out to all UK stores early in 2009 and customer use has been growing strongly. Towards the end of the year, the Stock Check & Reserve service was rolled out to all stores. Customer response to these developments and other improvements in web content has resulted in significant increases in the website customer satisfaction ratings. Homebase online website offers a wide range of products including lawnmowers from brands like flymo, qualcast, bosch and hayter, garden furniture including barbecues, benches, parasols, table and chairs. Garden Sheds and greenhouses, kitchens, bathrooms,building supplies paint and lots lots more. Homebase - Latest Offers