private industry retail founded 2008 headquarters welwyn garden city england products alcoholic beverages website www.threshergroup.com first quench retailing was the largest independent off licence retail chain in the uk with around 1 300 shops operating under several retail brands though all have now been closed . its head office was based in welwyn garden city hertfordshire . on 29 october 2009 it was announced that the company had entered into administration . 1 contents 1 history 2 previous branding 2.1 brands trading at closure 2.1.1 primarily wine with beer ale cider 2.1.2 value and convenience goods including alcohol 2.1.3 scottish brand with main focus on wine beer cider ale 2.2 brands which were phased out or renamed after takeovers or restructures 2.2.1 wine led 2.2.2 drink retailing 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit the company was originally formed as first quench retailing by the merger of the whitbread owned threshers and the allied domecq owned victoria wine in august 1998 . this brought together the 1 470 thresher wine shop drinks cabin wine rack bottoms up and huttons brands with around 1 500 victoria wine cellars haddows martha s vineyard and the firkin . allied domecq later sold their 50 % of the company to punch taverns in september 1999 . in november 1991 threshers then owned by whitbread alone had bought the peter bottomfield dominic group from grand metropolitan for 50m . the bottoms up brand of shops formerly owned by peter bottomfield dominic was retained . peter bottomfield dominic was separated from grandmet s idv group in 1989 to become a retail division . at time of the merger the company employed around 20 000 people and claimed to account for around 13 % of the take home drinks market tesco in comparison claimed around 14 % . the number of stores and employees were gradually reduced in the years following although it remained the largest off licence chain until the company s demise in 2009 . the company s stores were split across several brand focussed trading divisions which were eventually reduced to two . a wine led division included their premium brand and high wine mix stores with the drinks division focussed around their convenience driven and drinks led shops . the company was purchased by the japanese private equity firm nomura holdings in october 2000 for 225m . terra firma capital partners purchased the company in april 2002 . in march 2003 terra firma capital partners dispensed with the first quench name and adopted thresher group as the overall company identity and trading name first quench retailing limited remained the legal name . in july 2003 the company acquired gourmet meal business leaping salmon to attempt exploit the natural links between food and wine . they later experimented rebranding some stores thresher food to offer premium ready meals but after the experiment proved unsuccessful those stores were eventually reverted to either the thresher s or wine rack brands . the collapse of rival retailer unwins led to threshers buying 200 stores with the remaining 170 stores closing . the stores were rebranded as either the local thresher s or wine rack . 2 3 in june 2007 thresher group was sold to the equity company vision capital for around 250 million . in 2008 the company reverted to using the first quench retailing fqr name from thresher group . on 29 october 2009 it was announced that first quench retailing had entered into administration and kpmg were appointed administrators . 4 5 the following day 81 redundancies were made at the company s head office in welwyn garden city . 6 the brand names thresher s the local bottoms up and victoria wine were subsequently purchased by midlands based newsagent off licence and convenience store operator dave s discount group . 7 previous branding edit brands trading at closure edit primarily wine with beer ale cider edit wine rack true blue customer service and product knowledge driven value and convenience goods including alcohol edit the local yellow threshers red scottish brand with main focus on wine beer cider ale edit haddows purple brands which were phased out or renamed after takeovers or restructures edit wine led edit bottoms up offering up to 650 brands of wine in one shop wine rack victoria wine peter bottomfield dominic martha s vineyard drink retailing edit threshers drinks cabin unwins firkin off licence hutton s drinks direct see also edit majestic wine oddbins references edit wood zoe 30 october 2009 . threat to 6 500 jobs as threshers goes into administration . the guardian . retrieved 25 september 2013 . threshers buys 200 unwins stores . bbc news . 2005 12 23 . web discount frenzy at threshers . bbc news . 1 december 2006 . threshers owner in administration . bbc news . 2009 10 29 . leroux marcus ; walsh dominic 2009 10 30 . threshers owner falls into administration . london times online . threshers owner reveals job cuts . bbc news . 2009 10 30 . midcounties co op sells news express ; the grocer 27 aug 2011 external links edit first quench retailing vision capital www.visioncapital.com v t e whitbread plc subsidiaries and brands current beefeater grill brewers fayre costa coffee coffeeheaven premier inn table table taybarns touchbase former berni inn britvic david lloyd leisure hogshead pizza hut swallow hotels t.g.i. friday s threshers whitbread inns other samuel whitbread whitbread round the world race category retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title first quench retailing & oldid 738132918 categories companies disestablished in 2009defunct retail companies of the united kingdomwine retailers of the united kingdom navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 7 september 2016 at 02 47 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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