6
BUSINESS
The dash for
the 9.31am
could hit
the buffers
Rail firms need billions to plug a Covid
shortfall. They want to tear up ticketing
rules to charge a sliding scale of fares
through the day, reveals Jon Yeomans
Seasoned rail travellers know
the drill: wait till 9:30 for the
first cheap train of the day and
save a fortune. However, the
days of hunting for “off peak”
tickets may be numbered,
under plans dusted off by the
railway industry.
Train operating companies
want to shake up fares and do
away with the “cliff edge”
where expensive peak-time
trains depart half empty
while many passengers hang
back and crowd onto the first
off-peak service. The
proposal is one idea to boost
passenger numbers and plug
an estimated £20 billion
shortfall on the railways.
The Rail Delivery Group
(RDG), which speaks for
companies such as
FirstGroup and Govia, has
urged ministers to use the
private sector’s “in-depth
knowledge of their customers
and markets” to help revive
the railways after Covid; this
would include “innovative”
tickets that smooth prices out
throughout the day.
The sector also wants the
government to consider
London-style tap-in, tap-out,
pay-as-you-go fares in all the
big cities.scenes, though, is of a wealthy family
riven by conflicts. While a source close to
the company insists Mark’s exit was
mutually agreed, the Fenwick family had
been feuding for years. The two warring
factions, one led by Mark and the other
by his cousins, are part of a complex net-
work of 35 family shareholders of differ-
ent generations with different priorities.
Against this messy backdrop, Fenwick
has been battling to secure its future on
the high street. The rapid growth of
e-commerce had blown a huge hole in its
profits before lockdowns piled on the
pain. The turmoil has spurred the Fen-
wick family to market its £500 million
Bond Street flagship in the West End —
tantamount to selling the family silver.A
nasty surprise was in store
for Mark Fenwick when he
arrived for a board meeting
on the top floor of Newcas-
tle’s Fenwick department
store six years ago. His fellow
directors told him that, after
17 years of his chairing the
family firm, they had lost
confidence in his leadership.
The meeting turned acrimonious, not
least because the people who wanted him
out were his cousins, the three brothers
Adam, Andrew and Hugo Fenwick.
Since John James Fenwick opened his
first store 140 years ago, the Fenwick
brand has been synonymous with deco-
rum and civility. The reality behind theA byword in retail elegance
for more than a century, the
department store is in
trouble. After years of
squabbling, can its owners
finally embrace the digital
age, asks Sam Chambers
Dynasty
Will the feuding
Fenwick family come
together to stop the rot?
For the Fenwick business, family own-
ership is a blessing and a curse. A long-
term outlook and conservative approach
has left the upmarket retailer with sub-
stantial assets and minimal debts. But a
disparate shareholder base has hindered
the decision making and bold actions
needed to keep up with the times; Fen-
wick only began selling online in 2019 — a
quarter of a century after Amazon dis-
patched its first order. “Some sharehold-
ers want to be involved in decision mak-
ing, some just want a dividend, and some
want to cash in and sell the whole thing.
So you are guaranteed that any big deci-
sion you make will piss off a load of peo-
ple,” one source said.
The question now is, how much longer
can the family tolerate the decline in
their wealth? And can they put aside their
differences to dig Fenwick out of a hole?J
ohn James Fenwick opened JJ Fen-
wick, Mantle Maker and Furrier in
Newcastle in 1882. His son Fred trav-
elled to Paris in 1890 to learn about
department store retailing, taking
inspiration from Le Bon Marché and
implementing it in Fenwick’s new store
on Bond Street. In 1927, the company
bought the premises for £75,500.
Today, Fenwick trades from nine
stores including outlets in York, Colches-
ter and London’s Brent Cross shopping
centre. Last year, lockdowns pushed it to
a £112 million pre-tax loss, its third con-
secutive year in the red, on sales of
£140.5 million.
Investors have shared £59 million in
dividends over the past decade, includ-
ing a £19.1 million payout in 2016. Those
payments have been made despite a wor-
sening retail market and have only been
possible because Fenwick enjoys the lux-
ury of owning most of its stores. The fam-
ily’s wealth declined by £53 million to
£553 million last year, according to The
Sunday Times Rich List.
“Owning the properties has afforded
them financial protection, but that’s insu-
lated them from having to change,” said
Richard Hyman, partner at Thought Pro-
voking Consulting.
“As these families grow, you get more
and more shareholders who are not
directly involved but rely on the business
for their income. It is not easy to corral all
these people... Fenwick isn’t structured
well to deal with huge challenges.”
A preference for dividends over invest-
ment, and hostility towards technology,
led Fenwick’s management to resist mak-
ing the necessary changes to compete in
the digital age. Until 2018, each of Fen-
wick’s stores bought its own stock with-
out logging it on an IT system. “Stock was
entered in by hand on paper — and every
time you sold something, you went and
crossed it off the list,” a former insider
said. “It was like something out of Are You
Being Served?.”
Mark Fenwick is known as a domineer-
ing maverick who combined his work at
Fenwick with managing the musicians
Roxy Music and Roger Waters. His
daughter, Mia, is Fenwick’s digi-
tal and marketing director and
his son, Leo, is head of brand.
Mark’s Eton-educated cousins
Adam, Andrew and Hugo are
the other big centre of
power. Adam is a more retir-
ing character who was on
the board of Northern Rock
when it collapsed. He is said
to have endured a torrid
relationship with Mark dur-
ing his 14 years as Fenwick’s
managing director. “As any-
one who has seen them
together can tell you, Adam
thinks Mark is a bully ... and
Mark thinks Adam is an
idiot,” one source said.
With the family at an
impasse over the chairman-
ship, Fenwick’s legal counsel
convened a meeting of share-
holders to decide the com-
pany’s future direction in Sep-
tember 2016. In an attempt to
keep the peace, Eliza Manning-
ham-Buller, former head of MI5, was
enlisted to chair the meeting. A
majority voted in favour of the appoint-
ment of external managers for the first
time, and a new governance structure, to
separate family grievances from the run-
ning of the firm.
That move is said to have frustrated
the ambitions of Andrew, a founding
partner of City PR firm Brunswick who isThe business
was run for a
long time by
Mark
Fenwick, left,
but Hugo,
right, once
High Sheriff
of Kent, has
not had a top
position in
30 years with
the company