Heritage

One step back, many steps forward

Inevitably, there have been setbacks along the way. That’s part of doing business, of being entrepreneurial. At COFRA, we know that every venture is an opportunity – either to succeed, or to learn for the future. Over 180 years, there have been many such opportunities. Responding to them, the family owners grew the business in ways that Clemens and August, C&A’s founders, would never have recognised. New countries, new continents and new activities have transformed it from what was once a local fashion retailer in a small town in the Dutch province of Friesland into a global, diversified, multi-sector operation that today directly employs over 74,000 people.

What Clemens and August would have recognised though are the shared values that continue to drive COFRA’s approach to doing business even today: the courage to think long term, the commitment to doing good and the importance of preserving and growing the business for future generations.

And post-war expansion

On the eve of the First World War, C&A had eight branches in the Netherlands and five in Germany. Initially, the war had little effect on business. The Netherlands remained neutral. However, the Dutch stores soon ran into problems sourcing supplies from Germany. C&A’s novel answer was to start manufacturing its own garments. In Germany, C&A sold only ladieswear and children’s clothing – for which demand remained fairly steady during the war. As the military and economic situation became increasingly desperate, clothing was regulated. With sales down, no new branches opened in either Germany or the Netherlands. Within a few years of the war ending, C&A was again planning for long-term expansion, opening new stores in both countries. In 1922, C&A opened its first store in the UK.

Troubled times in World War II

The Second World War wrought divisions in the family and the businesses in the Netherlands, the UK and Germany. Differences arose in particular with how to respond to the regime of the Third Reich. Decades later, it’s difficult to comprehend the pressures and context in which decisions were taken, but it’s clear that some of the actions of the business leaders in Germany fell well below acceptable standards of morality and decency.

To understand this period of company history better, and to establish the facts, the family owners enlisted the help of Professor Mark Spoerer from the University of Regensburg. His work unearthed some distressing evidence of cooperation with the Nazi Party which went beyond normal compliance with a domineering regime into opportunism. The family owners feel great shock and remorse at this failure to live by the values at the heart of the enterprise.

Expansion into America

More than a third of C&A’s 56 stores in Europe were destroyed by air raids in the Second World War. Production limits, rationing and price regulation during and after the conflict combined with a slow economic recovery throughout Europe meant the business faced an uphill struggle and had to look elsewhere for opportunities to grow.

The United States was an obvious candidate for expansion, and in 1948 the family rolled out its first C&A store in Brooklyn, New York. This was followed two years later by a flagship store on Fifth Avenue. The formula didn’t work. Fierce competition and established differences in the local retail industry proved insurmountable. After several attempts to crack the code, the two remaining C&A stores in the US closed in 1964.

Advantages of scale

The 1990s were a watershed in the history of European integration and globalisation. The creation of a single European market of over 400 million consumers brought significant challenges and opportunities to all businesses. Anticipating this, in 1990 C&A set up a single European buying company. Convinced that C&A’s mission to serve its customers could now best be achieved by moving from an autonomous country-based organisation, the individual C&A countries united in transferring to it responsibility for all C&A buying. The result: advantages of scale across the new single market created by the Treaty of Maastricht. This process of rationalisation, simplification and centralisation continued in 1995 with the birth of C&A Europe to coordinate the activities of the separate C&A countries. One market, one C&A.

C&A pulls out of the UK