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| Type | Limited company |
|---|---|
| Founded | May 11, 1964 |
| Founder(s) | Terence Conran |
| Headquarters | Spitalfields, London, United Kingdom |
| Number of locations | 80 stores |
| Area served | Europe |
| Key people | Christian Rojkjaer (Acting CEO) Theo Williams (Head of Design Studio) |
| Industry | Retailer |
| Products | Home accessories, furniture, upholstery |
| Owner(s) | IKANO Group |
| Employees | 2,100 |
| Website | www.habitat.net |
Habitat is a retailer of household furnishings in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and has franchised outlets in other countries. Founded in 1964 by Terence Conran, it was sold by the IKANO Group, owned by the Kamprad family, in December 2009 to Hilco, a restructuring specialist.
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Terence Conran founded the company in London in 1964, opening his own store to market his Summa range of furniture.[1] The first Habitat store was opened in Fulham Road in Chelsea[2] by Conran, his then wife Caroline and the model Pagan Taylor.[3] This store became the Habitat template, with its quarry tiled floor, whitewashed brick walls, white-painted wooden-slatted ceilings and spotlights creating a feeling of space and focusing attention on the product.[3] Conran has said the main reason for the shop's initial success was that Habitat was one of the few places that sold cheap Pasta storage jars just as the market for dried pasta took off in the UK.[2]
The business expanded quickly in the UK throughout the 1960's and internationally with the first overseas store opening in 1973 in Paris.[1] Habitat also published a catalogue that showed a range of products grouped together in pleasant surroundings.[4]
In 1981, the company's shares were floated on the London Stock Exchange[1] and in 1982 merged with Mothercare Group to form Habitat Mothercare Group PLC.[1] The now-listed company bought the furniture retailer Heal's and the Richard Shops fashion chain in 1983.[1] In 1986, the company merged with British Home Stores to form Storehouse plc.[1] In 1992 Habitat was purchased from Storehouse by IKANO.[1] In October 2009, following several years of trading losses, the Kamprad family, who own IKANO, put the company up for sale,[5] and it was sold to Hilco, a restructuring specialist, in December 2009 with the Kamprad family writing off the debts of the company and providing €50 million (£45 million) of working capital while Hilco paid about €15m.[6]
In October 2009, Habitat employed 1,574 people and operated in 71 stores: 35 in the UK, 26 in France, five in Spain and five in Germany.[5] The company used to have stores in Galway and Dublin in the Republic of Ireland but these were closed down in 2008.[7] In addition, the company operates stores or concessions in Belgium, Iceland, Indonesia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Thailand, Turkey and Scandinavia. The company also operates sourcing offices in Italy, Poland, Slovenia and China.
In June 2009 Habitat was criticised for taking advantage of the list of trending topics on the social-networking service Twitter to promote its products.[8] These topics included hashtags referring to Apple, the iPhone, Mousavi (the Iranian Presidential Candidate) as well as other hashtags relating to the 2009 Iranian election protests. Because the products being promoted had nothing to do with the subject of the hashtags Habitat's actions were considered to be spam. Habitat's PR department reacted quickly to delete the offending posts and blamed an intern for the inappropriate use of the hashtags and apologised to Twitter users for their actions.[9] Habitat returned to Twitter in September 2009.[10]
In January 2009, Habitat began planning a fully transactional web site to enter the online shopping market.[11] The site was launched in November 2009 after a period when only a small number of products were available online.[12]
   | IKANO group official website - Home : Ikano Group |
| | Habitat official website - habitat.net :: Habitat |
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