GUS plc was a FTSE 100 retailing, manufacturing and financial conglomerate based in the United Kingdom. GUS was an abbreviation of Great Universal Stores, the company's name before 2001, while it was also known as the Glorious Gussies amongst stockbrokers. The company started out as Universal Stores, a mail order business created by the Rose family. In 1931, Isaac Wolfson joined the mail order company and would, through a series of takeovers, turn it into a retail, manufacturing and financial conglomerate, becoming Europe's biggest mail order firm and with over 2,700 physical stores. His son, Leonard Wolfson, followed him as chairman, to be succeeded by his nephews David Wolfson (1996–2000) and Victor Barnett (2000–2002). During the 1980s, the business divested much of its physical retail and manufacturing subsidiaries under Leonard Wolfson to concentrate on mail order, property and finance. In October 2006, the company was split into two separate companies: Experian which continues to exist, and Home Retail Group which was bought by Sainsbury's in 2016. History Universal Stores was founded in 1900 as a mail-order business in Manchester, England by Abraham, George and Jack Rose. A private company, Universal Stores (Manchester) Ltd, was set up to manage the business and the company was incorporated in 1917. In 1930, the company changed its name to Great Universal Stores Limited. The next year it was listed on the London Stock Exchange. At this stage, it was the leading mail order business in the UK, with a single catalogue, Great Universal. A second catalogue, John England, was launched later in 1933. The company set up a chain of department stores in a joint venture with American businessman Charley Nicholls called New Universal Stores. In 1931, Isaac Wolfson was invited to join the company as merchandise controller after impressing director George Rose at a trade fair in Manchester, accepting no wages in return of share options. The flotation of the company was not a huge success, and with an ill-advised move to London the share price dropped. Wolfson, using money borrowed from his father in law, purchased a large amount of shares and became the joint managing director a year later with George Rose, who subsequently resigned in 1934 leaving Wolfson in sole charge. In 1933 the company had made a loss of £55,000, but Wolfson's reorganisation turned this around to a profit of £330,000 in 1934. He was chairman from the late