Upheaval at fashion icon: Selling out would be bad for Burberry and bad for Britain, says ALEX BRUMMER By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Updated: 17:00 EDT, 15 July 2024 e-mail View comments Among the great British value-creating corporate breakups of recent decades was that of Great Universal Stores. Out of the embers of the empire built by the late Sir Isaac Wolfson were born three enterprises: Burberry, credit data giant Experian and Argos, now part of Sainsbury’s. Burberry has had a great run as an independent entity capturing the Zeitgeist in the US, Japan and China as a quintessentially British upscale fashion group defined by its trench coats and signature check.
The value at Burberry is in its traditional virtues. The most successful chief executives and designers, such as Angela Ahrendts, sought to build new products around the core offering rather than drift into the world of ultra-luxury of LVMH, Hermes et al. Jonathan Akeroyd, who has been ousted as chief executive, clearly thought the way to compete was to move into high fashion and charge Sloane Street prices for products that no one wants.
Checkered past: Burberry has had a great run as an independent entity capturing the Zeitgeist in the US, Japan and China as a quintessentially British upscale fashion group His summary dismissal comes as annual profits are set to fall below expectations, the dividend is to be suspended and redundancies are announced. Replacing Akeroyd will be Joshua Schulman. Encouragingly.
