History
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 and Huttons brands with 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, 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.
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.
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' or 'Wine Rack'.
In June 2007, Thresher Group was sold to the equity company Vision Capital for around £250 million.
Following a number of changes to branding, the company was renamed First Quench Retailing from Threshers Group.
Read more about this topic: First Quench Retailing
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