Brighthouse Have Got Much Better
Radio Rentals conjures images of mutton-chop sideburns, Golf GTIs and series of The Sweeney on knackered tv sets. Irrespective of this, one of its close descendants BrightHouse is beginning to claw back the place it lost on the high street with the emergence of shops like Currys, Dixons and Comet and the reduction in the price of TVs. Brighthouse was spun off from Thorn-EMI, the owner of Radio Rentals, by Terra Firma, Guy Hands’s private equity group. It gained infamy for exorbitant APRs and expensive mandatory extra cover. Nowthe chain is on the front foot, working to clean up both its branches and its reputation as it embarks on a very ambitious growth programme. It plans to inaugurate 21 outlets next year and estimates that there is enough market for at least 600. Just a dozen of Brighthouse’s one hundred and seventy eight stores are in Greater London, but, as Leo McKee, the sincere chief executive of the outlet, states the high street turns into a very different place beyond the M25. Its prospects, almost solely from the lower socioeconomic segments are finding difficult to find credit – if they ever could – as lenders cut their risk profiles. “We are targeting areas that Lloyds TSB are pulling out of,” Mr McKee stated. The prospect of Brighthouse stepping in to offer credit to our most deprived areas will not fill everyone with joy. However Brighthouse’s CEO insists that this is an invalid perception. “When I “started managing the company [in 2004], we “requested an “independent “market research to examine “the proposition asking: ‘Is it sufficient?’ and: ‘Does it have longevity?’ he said. “The results came back: your name on the high street is garbage; you’re seen as a rip-off merchant; the prices were high, the stores shabby. “The first thing I did was to change all the prices to match the high street, on the day I found out [the results].” The old thinking was that as far as customers could afford the instalment, they would not worry about the final price. And this thinking had side effects right through the business. That is what Brighthouse are now trying to fix so their image improves amongst the general public.
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