 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1896 [1] |
| Founder | Michael Davis and Albert Lindbergh |
| Headquarters | , |
| Services | stationery retail |
| Revenue | R2 billion (2015) [2] |
| R614 million (2015) [2] | |
| R35 million (2015) [2] | |
| Owner | Edcon |
| Parent | Edcon |
| Website | cna.co.za |
Central News Agency or Consolidated News Agencies, better known simply as CNA, is a South African retail chain of stationery and book stores.
Founded in 1896 to sell newspapers in Johannesburg by using newspaper delivery boys on foot and bicycles, CNA initially focused on selling The Star , The Standard and the Diggers News newspapers. A breakthrough for the company came in 1902 when The Argus and the Cape Times newspapers granted a contract to the company to publish all of their newspapers. By 1904 the company had stores across South Africa and continued to expand to meet demand for news during World War I. The company was floated on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1903 to raise £120,000 [3] (equivalent to £129,500,000 in 2017 based on its economic share). [4]
By 1928 the company was publishing most of South Africa's newspapers. Shortly after World War II the company expanded by opening outlets in Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe). [3] In 1983 CNA merged with Gallo Africa to form CNA Gallo. The company acquired South African cinema chain Nu Metro in 1990 and proceeded to fully buy it out in 1992. [3] By 1995 the company had 350 stores across South Africa. [3] The company was acquired by Wooltru in 1995 for R500 million. [5]
A difficult retail market for stationery and books in the mid to late 1990s and internal restructuring put the company under financial pressure. [6] This led to it and its remaining 130 outlets being sold to Edcon in 2002 for R130 million. [7]
WHSmith is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products and confectionery.
Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids and various others. The company was founded in 1957; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters located in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area.
Woolworths Group Limited is an Australian retail company headquartered in Bella Vista, Sydney, with extensive operations throughout Australia and New Zealand. It is the largest company in Australia by revenue and the second-largest in New Zealand.
Dollar Tree, Inc., is an American multi-price-point chain of discount variety stores. Headquartered in Chesapeake, Virginia, it is a Fortune 500 company and operates 15,115 stores throughout the 48 contiguous U.S. states and Canada. Its stores are supported by a nationwide logistics network of 24 distribution centers. Additionally, the company operates stores under the name of Dollar Bills, as well as a multi-price-point variety chain under the Family Dollar banner.
The Warehouse Group (TWG) was founded by Stephen Tindall in 1982, and is the largest retail group operating in New Zealand. It is a corporate group that consists of The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, Torpedo7, Noel Leeming, 1-day and TheMarket.
GUS plc was a FTSE 100 retailing, manufacturing and financial conglomerate based in the United Kingdom. GUS was an abbreviation of Great Universal Stores, the company's name before 2001, while it was also known as the Glorious Gussies amongst stockbrokers. The company started out as Universal Stores, a mail order business created by the Rose family. In 1931, Isaac Wolfson joined the mail order company and would, through a series of takeovers, turn it into a retail, manufacturing and financial conglomerate, becoming Europe's biggest mail order firm and with over 2,700 physical stores. His son, Leonard Wolfson, followed him as chairman, to be succeeded by his nephews David Wolfson (1996–2000) and Victor Barnett (2000–2002). During the 1980s, the business divested much of its physical retail and manufacturing subsidiaries under Leonard Wolfson to concentrate on mail order, property and finance. In October 2006, the company was split into two separate companies: Experian which continues to exist, and Home Retail Group which was bought by Sainsbury's in 2016.
Lotus's is a retail chain in Thailand founded and operated by Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group, with operations in Malaysia following the acquisition of Tesco Malaysia in 2020.
The FamilyMart Company, Ltd. is a Japanese convenience store franchise chain. It is Japan's second largest convenience store chain, behind 7-Eleven. There are now 24,574 stores worldwide in Japan, Taiwan, China, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Its headquarters is on the 17th floor of the Sunshine 60 building in Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo. There are some stores in Japan with the name Circle K Sunkus under the operation of FamilyMart.
Our Price was a chain of record stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland from 1971 until 2004.
Harvey Norman is a large Australian-based, multi-national retailer of furniture, bedding, computers, communications and consumer electrical products. It mainly operates as a franchise, with the main brand and all company-operated stores owned by ASX-listed Harvey Norman Holdings Limited. As of 2022, there are 304 company-owned and franchised stores in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and South-East Asia operating under the Harvey Norman, Domayne and Joyce Mayne brands in Australia, and under the Harvey Norman brand overseas.
K·B Toys was an American chain of mall-based retail toy stores. The company was founded in 1922 as Kaufman Brothers, a wholesale candy store. The company opened a wholesale toy store in 1946, and ended its candy wholesales two years later to emphasize its toy products. Retail sales began during the 1970s, using the name Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby.
Edcon Limited was a retail company based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Its subsidiaries included Edgars, a department store with 203 branches. In 2020, the Competition Tribunal approved the sale of the Edgars division to Retailability (pty) Ltd, and Jet to The Foschini Group.
Sanity is an Australian chain of music and entertainment stores and is the country's second-largest retailer of recorded audio and video discs. It is privately owned by Ray Itaoui, and as of March 2023, Sanity closed all of its 49 remaining stores except they kept one store in Sydney. The brand specialises in the sale of CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays and related merchandise and accessories, sold from its network of stores and website. The Sanity brand was owned and conceived by Brazin Limited from 1992, before being folded into BB Retail Capital in 2006, then became a company in its own right after it was divested to Itaoui in 2009. At its peak, there were more than 150 Sanity outlets across every state and territory of Australia.
Eason Retail PLC, known as Easons or Eason, is an Irish retail company best known for selling books, stationery, cards, gifts, newspapers and magazines. Headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, it is the largest supplier of books, magazines and newspapers in Ireland.
Smiggle is an Australian-based retail store chain that sells stationery and related accessories. It was founded in Melbourne by Stephen Meurs and Peter Pausewang in 2003 and acquired by the Just Group in July 2007. As of February 2016, the chain has stores located across Australia (135), New Zealand (23), Singapore (17), United Kingdom (100), Hong Kong (14), Malaysia (22) and the Republic of Ireland (3). Smiggle is renowned for its use of vibrant bold colours and quirky graphics on most of its branded products.
The Pie Face chain, founded in 2003 in Sydney, Australia, by Wayne Homschek, predominantly sells various type of pies and coffee. Following a period of rapid growth in Australia and overseas, the company entered administration in 2014 and the majority of the chain's stores closed. In April 2017, it was acquired by United Petroleum for an undisclosed sum. Between 2018 and 2020, Pie Face opened over 200 locations across Australia. As of December 2020, Pie Face operated 240 locations.
Naivas Supermarket, often referred to simply as "Naivas", is the largest supermarket chain in Kenya, with 84 outlets as of June 2022. A that time, Naivas was the largest supermarket chain in Kenya, ahead of Quick Mart Limited with 51 outlets in the country.
Food Lover's Market is a South African supermarket chain that operates franchised grocery stores and convenience stores in Southern Africa. The company is a member of the Franchise Association of South Africa. As of 2022, there are over 300 stores in South Africa, 2 in Botswana and 3 in Namibia.
Edgars is a Johannesburg-based chain of stores present all over Southern Africa. The department store was previously selling clothing, shoes, homeware & beauty and under new leadership has recently shifted its focus to mass-market fashion and beauty products.
Dis-Chem is the second largest retail pharmacy chain in South Africa, with 165 stores, plus 4 in Namibia and 1 in Botswana. The chain had a total revenue of 21.4 billion South African rand in 2019. Dis-Chem has private label products, sells via the Internet, operates a loyalty programme, and the Group has a wholesale division. The chain announced in 2016 its plans to double the number of outlets through 2021. At that time, one-third of its outlets were less than three years old.
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| State-owned enterprises | |||
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