Ted Baker

Ted Baker plc is a British luxury clothing retail company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
History.
Founder Ray Kelvin, who named the company after a self-styled alter ego, an “intrepid aviator, an all-round sportsman and the consort of princesses and Hollywood beauties”,- started his first store in March 1988 in Glasgow, and opened further stores in Manchester, and Nottingham. In 1990 Ted Baker opened a store in Covent Garden (with additional stores in London's Soho, Nottingham and Leeds) and Kelvin bought the company outright from part-owners Goldberg and Sons. A new range, Ted Baker Woman, was launched in 1995.
The company purchased its headquarters in London for £58.25 million in summer 2017.
Retail stores and outlets.
Ted Baker has a number of stand-alone stores in the UK. The Ted Baker range is also sold by other retailers (which it refers to as Ted Baker Trustees), in particular in stores of the John Lewis Partnership and House of Fraser. Ted Baker also has stores at Bicester Village Retail Outlet, Swindon Designer Outlet, Portsmouth's Gunwharf Quays and Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet. There is a Ted Baker concession in all Selfridges & Co stores; London, Birmingham, Manchester and the Trafford Centre.
Ted Baker has stores and outlets in the rest of Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, Asia, South Africa and the Middle East. It opened a store on Fifth Avenue in New York City in August 2012.
As of 2018, Ted Baker has 490 stores and concessions worldwide: 192 in the UK, 98 in Europe, 111 in the US and Canada, 80 in the Middle East, Africa and Asia and 9 in Australia.
In April 2020, Ted baker furloughed nearly 2,000 employees, including head office staff, due to the COVID-19 crisis. The company has also suspended non-essential capital expenditure and halted any discretionary operating expenses.
Wholesale operations.
Ted Baker has expanded its high street presence through its wholesale business which includes Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Norway, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, as well as the British Isles. Wholesale operations commenced in 1994 through careful selection of retail stores.
Governance.
In response to an online petition started by a former employee alleging that Ray Kelvin, who was then the company's chief executive, had hugged employees inappropriately, it was announced on 7 December 2018 that Kelvin was taking voluntary leave of absence from the company while the allegations were investigated and that Lindsay Page would act as chief executive. On 4 March 2019 it was announced that Kelvin had resigned and would be leaving the company immediately. Poor trading figures led to Page and executive chairman David Bernstein stepping down from their roles, and Rachel Osborne being appointed acting CEO, in December 2019.