Douglas (company)

Berta Kolbe was the first woman to take over the management of J.S Douglas Sons. She received a business offer from Anna and Maria Carstens: the sisters wanted to open their own perfumery under the established name of "Douglas" to "establish and operate a business in soaps, perfumery products, and toiletries in Hamburg."[4] And so, on 24 May 1910, the first "Parfümerie Douglas" opened on Hamburg's shopping street Neuer Wall, and even exists today.[7]

In 1929, the Carsten sisters passed the business on to their goddaughters Hertha and Lucie and their father, German artist Johannes Harders. As of 1931, the company was called "Parfümerie Douglas Harders & Co." and thus, reflected the new ownership structure. In 1936, the family hired Erhard Hunger to run the business. He reduced the soap business and expanded the assortment to premium brand products like Elizabeth Arden. By 1969, Erhard Hunger had expanded Douglas to six stores in Hamburg.

In 1969, the six Douglas perfumeries were taken over by the then listed Hussel AG.[11] Under the management of Hussel's chief executive at the time, John Kreke, Hussel AG fueled the expansion of the perfumery through more takeovers and store openings. These were initially consolidated under the name Hanhausen-Douglas GmbH. In the course of this development, Hussel AG was restructured into a holding group with two operating companies: one for confectionery and one for perfumeries. In 1973, Hanhausen-Douglas took over the Austrian chain Ruttner. As of 1976, all perfumery stores eventually operated under the name "Parfümerie Douglas" and the associated company under the name "Parfümerie Douglas GmbH".

Douglas in Wałbrzychu, Poland

During the 1980s, the Parfümerie Douglas GmbH expanded to the Netherlands, France, Italy and the United States. And, Douglas continued to expand in Germany, for example through the acquisition of "Er & Sie" perfumeries. Based on this development in the perfumery business, an organizational restructuring took place that ended in 1989 with the founding of the Douglas Holding AG to replace the Hussel Holding AG.[12]

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Douglas opened stores in eastern Germany in the 90's and expanded into Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. Since the start of the new millennium, Douglas has expanded to Poland, Hungary, Monaco, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Denmark and Croatia.[11] Next to stationary retail, Douglas has also been selling its products via its own online shop since 2000.

At the annual general meeting in June 2001, Dr. Jörn Kreke handed over the chairmanship of the Douglas Holding to his son Dr. Henning Kreke after 32 years in the top position.[13]

Due in part to the economic crisis and a low market share, the company withdrew from Slovakia, Estonia and Denmark in 2009/10 as well as from the American market.

In 2012, the Kreke family, together with the private equity investor Advent International, made a public takeover offer to the remaining shareholders of the listed parent company of the Douglas Group, Douglas Holding AG, which at that time also included the companies Thalia (books), Christ (jewelry), AppelrathCüpper (womensear) and Hussel (confectionary).[14]  After the successful takeover in 2013, Douglas de-listed from the Frankfurt stock exchange.[15] This marked the beginning of the conglomerate's reorientation, which went back to being purely a perfumery chain in 2014.

France is the only country where the Douglas store brand is not used, Nocibé being used instead

After that, Douglas continued to grow internationally and acquired the French perfumery chain Nocibé with 455 stores in 2014.[16] The 170 French Douglas branches that existed at the time were rebranded as Nocibé. In addition, the company expanded to Norway.

At first, a renewed stock market launch for the Parfümerie Douglas Deutschland was planned for 2015.[17] However, on 1 June 2015, 85 percent of the company was sold to financial investor CVC Capital Partners with the Kreke family still holding a minority share of 15 percent.[18]

Then, manager Isabelle Parize took over as CEO of Douglas in February 2016[19] and the headquarters was moved in October from Hagen to Düsseldorf.[17] According to Douglas, the company wanted all customer-oriented departments and the online activities from Cologne to be concentrated in one place.[20] In the same year, the company withdrew from Turkey due to a small market share.[21]

In July 2017, Douglas completed a transaction to acquire the Spanish perfumery chain Bodybell.[22] In November, the company also completed transactions to acquire the Spanish chain Perfumerías If[23] and the Italian perfumery chains Limoni and La Gardenia.

In November 2017, Tina Müller took over as the Group CEO of Douglas.[24]

In 2018, Douglas bought the majority of Parfümerie Akzente and its online shop Parfumdreams which operates in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kigdom.

In January 2021, the company management decided to close around 500 of the 2,400 Douglas shops in Europe and instead to expand its own global online stores, which grew by 40.6% in 2020 to €822 million in sales.[25] In the 2020 financial year, which was marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and ended in September of the same year, Douglas recorded a decline in sales of 6.4% with worldwide sales of €3.2 billion. The operating result for the 2020 financial year fell by more than 16.7% to €292 million compared to the previous year.[25]

In Spain 103 of the 380 shops were closed and around 600 employees laid off.[26] In Germany 60 of 430 stores were closed and up to 600 employees laid off.[27] In France 41 of 610 Nocibé stores were sold to Bogart.[28] Major closing were also been made in Italy and Portugal.[29]

Sander van der Laan has been the new Group CEO of Douglas since November 2022. Tina Müller moved to the supervisory board. Since January 2023, Philipp Andrée has been Chief Digital Officer (CDO) and a member of the management board of the Douglas Group.[30]

Douglas opened its first stores in Belgium and Slovenia in 2023, after having launched online stores in both countries in 2021.[31][32]