A new-look TJ Hughes will emerge from administration this week. Neil Hodgson reports

A NEW era beckons for iconic Liverpool stores group TJ Hughes as it rises, phoenix-like, from the ashes of administration this week.

The London Road flagship store will officially open on Saturday under the ownership of Anil Juneja, who rescued the shop, and three other stores, from administration seven weeks ago.

Since then, two more have been added, saving a total of more than 700 jobs, in deals with administrator Ernst & Young, which took control of the 57-strong discount chain which was one year from celebrating its centenary and looked doomed to disappear under £433.5m of debts.

Ernst & Young has now pulled out of London Road, leaving the head office site and five sister stores in Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield, Widnes and Eastbourne ready to embark on a new chapter – with significant plans for growth already on the drawing board.

Liverpool-born Mr Juneja, 32, has already invested in expanding TJs’ online capabilities, and once the existing stores have been relaunched and refurbished, he intends to add more shops as he bids to restore the chain to its former glory.

Mr Juneja allowed LDP Business exclusive access behind the scenes as he prepared for Saturday’s relaunch.

On a tour of the first-floor offices, his backroom team were feverishly building the new website which should go live by the end of the month.

He revealed that the previous owners had, at the behest of their bankers, desperately tried to beef up the online presence but had run out of time as trading losses continued to mount.

Mr Juneja said: “The previous management invested a lot of money in January because that’s where they saw the growth for the business.

“That’s where they saw the future from their point of view and that’s where the banks wanted to see the investment.”

The previous website offered the top 1,000 selling lines from the stores and was achieving growth of 30%.

It had been based in the group’s Edge Lane distribution centre but was relocated by the last owner, Leeds-based Endless, to London Road in March.

He said in April they actually beat fellow Liverpool online retailer Littlewoods on pillow sales, hitting 35 orders a minute.

“It was a very successful website,” he added.

But he said the new site will have a bigger role to play.

“Geographically, we don’t have stores across the country now, but our customers are very loyal, so we should see some growth,” said Mr Juneja

London Road will also host a call centre of about 10 staff, initially, dealing with orders from a monthly 12-page mail-out which will be boosted to 20 pages as the new owner strives to maximise every commercial opportunity.

“We want to make the most of that and we will market it in the areas where we had stores but no longer have stores.”

But the public face of TJs remains its shops which, will be supported by the London Road site where it has enough storage capacity to serve 12 sites.

Beyond that, Mr Juneja said his Speke-based parent company, Benross, has sufficient warehousing capacity “if necessary”.

He has relocated to London Road from Benross, which was bought out of receivership by his father, Paul, in 1995 and now supplies and distributes a range of homeware, gardenware, electrical items and toys to retailers throughout the UK, sourced by its offices in Hong Kong and Ningbo, in China.

His father is now managing Benross and Mr Juneja and his younger brother, Amit, are masterminding the revival of TJs.

He said: “Now I am here, it is more than a full-time job. Me and Amit have taken on more responsibility. My brother has a great opportunity to step up to his new role.”

Mr Juneja admitted the change is intense: “Retail is a much faster pace than distribution. You have to deal with various issues, from customers, to buying, to operational, to financial, and they all come at you at once.

“But at the same time it is exciting. I am enjoying it.”

As we walk through the store, he explains slight changes to the layout, and also to the TJs offer: “We hope the customers will see something different.

“There will be a change of the mix in lines. There will be more new lines like new technology which will be a big area for us. Newness is needed in retail and there will be new ideas.

“One is we want to create a designer boutique area with some excellent brands in there. Brands that TJs customers have not seen in our stores, like D&G, etc.”

The revived TJs will be relaunched with the strapline “Making Famous Brands Affordable”, but Mr Juneja said some old favourites still had their place, such as Padders slippers, which were one of the chain’s best sellers: “The ladies love them because they are so comfortable.”

Other big sellers include Samsung TVs, Elizabeth Arden perfume, Rael Brook shirts and Wrangler jeans, at £24.99.

But he said there was no single product that epitomised TJs:

“Every department has a winner,” he added. He has also negotiated a deal to stock leisurewear brand Nike’s hoodies, which could be extended to Nike footwear. And Mr Juneja revealed that most suppliers had chosen to support the new-look business, despite the trauma of administration and the inevitable losses that they can incur from the death throes of a business.

He said: “We have built back relationships with suppliers who were burned by the administration. About 99% of suppliers are supporting us.”

He added: “They know us from the trade because we have been suppliers for 25 years in the industry, and all are friends and were competitors.

“We have a good relationship with suppliers, which helps resurrect this relationship.”

And he said Benross can supply up to 15% of TJs’ lines, particularly toys, in the run-up to the all-important Christmas trading period.

“Our plan is for Benross to increase that percentage. It is a win-win for both businesses, but it has got to be commercial for both companies at the same time.”

Improvements to the stores are also high on the agenda, Mr Juneja revealed.

He said: “I was in Newcastle, which was one of the flagship stores, because a previous managing director, George Foster, was from Newcastle.

“Over the years, they spent a lot of money on that store because he wanted his home town store looking the best, so Liverpool has some catching up to do and hopefully we can put that right over the next couple of years.”

He believes stores are still viable in today’s changing retail landscape.

“I believe the high street has a future. People still like to go out and shop,” he said.

“The web is a growing area but we do have a mix of customers, and customers that come to us are the ones that like to go out for the day and have a coffee, and that’s what we want to provide.”

And he said expansion, possibly through the acquisition of some more former TJs sites, is planned.

“There is a lot of possibilities with stores that have closed, but we have a big job on here to get these six stores right and get the business operating as we want it. But once we get settled, we will definitely look to develop more stores.”