Dunnes Stores

Dunnes, originally and still Dunnes Stores, is an Irish family-owned and one of the largest retail chains in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, but also operates branches in the United Kingdom and Spain. The company is based in Dublin.

Dunnes sells mainly textiles ( clothing and other textile products ), food and household goods to a lesser extent, in Ireland usually a combination of a large textile department and a food supermarket, both with separate billing; similar to the concept of Marks & Spencer. Only textile or only food - shops in Ireland are rare outside of Ireland foods are almost never offered in the Dunnes stores. A known - Dunnes own brand food is St. Bernard.

The company was founded in 1944 in the St. Patrick's Street in Cork City by Ben Dunne Sr. as a clothing store; the sale of food began in the 1960s. Opened in 1966, Dunnes in Cornelscourt in the former County Dublin, the first extra-urban shopping center in Ireland as a so-called big- box store, and made the little place is so far known nationwide.

Dunnes is not listed and is run as a private "unlimited company" - this is not common and means in consequence that the owner provide any numbers, but may have to pay unlimited amounts for claims against the company. By 1992, the family of Ben Dunne, Jr. was headed; since form two of his siblings, Frank Dunne (managing director ) and Margaret Heffernan, the top of the company. The reopening of the designated as the flagship luxury department store in the St. Patrick's Street in Cork City to conversion and expansion Heffernan said on September 11, 2009, Dunnes an Irish company will remain in family hands.

The members of the Dunne family as the owner of Dunnes are among the richest people of Ireland; in the Sunday Times list of richest people was, for example, Margaret Heffernan 2006 listed as the second richest Irish with assets of 603 million €. In 2009, the company is in a phase of gradual handover to the next generation of the family. There are rumors of the end of 2008, which was operating with a similar concept as Dunnes British supermarket chain ASDA, a Wal- Mart subsidiary, have tried to take over Dunnes.

Dunnes is the beginning of 2009, the largest supermarket chain in Irish-owned ( and after Tesco the second largest in Ireland) and the largest Irish family, with about 150 stores in Ireland, the UK and Spain. In Ireland, the sentence is commonplace: " The Irish Are not done shopping until they've shopped Dunnes Stores. " Since mid- 2007, a rebranding of Dunnes Stores Dunnes to be underway. The number of employees was at Dunnes beginning of 2009 at 18,000.