Dee history

Alec Monk was born in Wales in 1942, the son of a baker.

Meantime, in 1964, Frank Dee purchased the wholesaler that had been part of J H Mills.

Apparently frustrated at RTZ, in 1977 Monk moved to New York and took a position with AEA Investors, a prestigious investment firm.

Linfood had acquired a number of Carrefour retail superstores in 1978, and with these as a base Monk began to build his grocery empire.

In 1983 Monk converted the Frank Dee supermarkets into Gateway outlets, and he also changed Linfood’s name to Dee Corporation.

When, in 1985, no further targets were available in the British food retailing sector, Monk decided to establish a United States base with the purchase of Herman’s, the largest retailer of sporting goods in America.

R E Cousins, Mortlake revisited : John Dee's house and his burial in Mortlake, in R Turner (ed.), The Heptarchia Mystica of John Dee (Wellingborough, 1986), 107-115.

Monk defended the prudence of his moves, noting that he had predicted all along that it would take three years for Dee to assimilate its new acquisitions fully, which by 1987 also included the country’s fourth-largest drug chain, Medicare, and two more American sporting-goods outfits.

When the votes were counted in the spring of 1988, Monk had won the battle easily and Dee appeared safe for the time being.

In 1990 the first Somerfield store was opened, with the new format positioned upmarket from Gateway and designed to compete more directly with the stores of rivals J Sainsbury plc, Tesco PLC, and Safeway plc.

In late 1992 the Wellworth chain was sold to Fitzwilton PLC for £122 million.

In March 1993 Isosceles sold Herman’s to a United States investor group led by Tag-gart/Fasola Group for an undisclosed sum.

In March 1998 Somerfield merged with Kwik Save Group plc, operator of nearly 900 discount grocery stores located throughout the United Kingdom.

D E Harkness, John Dee's conversations with angels (Cambridge, 1999).

Needing to concentrate on reviving sales and profits at its core operations, Somerfield also announced in June 2000 that it would halt further development of its home shopping unit.