When Stanley Kalms’s father set up his first photographic studio in the Thirties he called it Dixons simply because the word fit above the door.
It was to become a household name as Stanley, now Lord, Kalms built the business into an electrical empire, encompassing such brands as Currys and PC World. Even when the name disappeared from the high street and from the company — which rebranded itself DSG — people still referred to the group as Dixons.
And now DSG is doing the same. The company announced yesterday that it was going back to the future and reviving its old name.
“Everyone called us Dixons anyway,” chief executive John Browett conceded yesterday. In the Far East, for example, buyers were met with blank looks when they introduced themselves as coming from DSG. “Suppliers would ask ‘Who are you? Ah, Dixons’,” Mr Browett said.
He insisted, however, that the rebranding under his predecessor five years ago was not a mistake. “It was a different rationale”, he said. “What they were trying to do was explain to everybody that we’re international, more than just the high street business.”
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The Dixons name, which first appeared in Southend in 1932, survives online and in 25 airport stores, but its high street stores have been rebranded Currys Digital. They will not be affected by the company name change, which must be ratified by shareholders at the annual meeting.
Indeed, Mr Browett believes that the disappearance of Dixons from the high street has been beneficial. “That’s a good thing because all suppliers know that Dixons owns all of these brands — Currys, Unieuro, Electroworld, PC World.”
DSG said yesterday that it has swung back into the black with a pre-tax profit of £112.7 million in the year to May 1 compared with loss of £123.6 million the previous year. Excluding one-off costs, profits rose 61 per cent to £90.5 million. Group sales rose 3 per cent to £8.5 billion.
The company has been focusing on bigger stores and has opened 20 combined Currys and PC World stores, which has brought about a 50 per cent rise in profit.
This year it expects to refurbish another 100 stores in Britain, including opening another 21 of its larger megastores, which at about 50,000 sq ft are nearly twice the size of standard stores.
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Its Scandinavian business, which was the seedbed for the new-look stores in Britain, was described as the “star performer”, with like-for-like sales up 13 per cent. The restructuring of its international business is complete, with sales in Italy, one of the more troubled businesses, improving.
DSG was granted a 60-day exclusive deal to sell Apple’s iPad in Britain. Mr Browett said sales were encouraging, although he could not issue figures. “It brings in footfall. Even now, there are five or six people in a store at any time, gathered around the iPad having it demonstrated to them,” he said.
He added that it would attract new spending, rather than cannibalise sales of laptops. “This looks like it’s a new category,” he said.
DSG has not paid a dividend since 2008. However, the company hinted that, as Dixons Retail, it could resume payouts in the next financial year, with first payments to investors in 2012. The shares dipped ¼p to 27¼p.
Caroline Gulliver, retail analyst at Execution Noble, said: “The transformation story at DSGI has much further to run.”