Arden Group history

In 1948, 43 Van’s Markets joined forces with eight stores owned by the Mayfair Companies, and the name of the chain became Mayfair Markets.

On a warm summer morning in July 1951, two boyishly enthusiastic young men wrote the stirring first paragraph of an ongoing and endlessly appetizing story, as they cut the ribbon on the very first Gelson’s supermarket.

At one point in the mid-1960’s, there were also Mayfairs in Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington state, and Nevada, and over 250 stores in the chain.

In 1964 the Poynter brothers - Frank and Philip, along with their friend George Snowball, set up shop in the cellar of their mother's semi-detached house in Bredbury, Stockport.

Just four months later in February 1965, they'd outgrown their 10ft square underground workspace, and moved into their first official headquarters in Marple, and Arden Dies - the first of the Arden companies - was born.

In April 1966 it made a preliminary application for listing on the New York Stock Exchange, and management predicted that trading would begin on October first of the same year.

In April 1967 scandal struck Arden-Mayfair.

In May 1968 President and CEO Luther Anderson announced that the company was reactivating its application for listing on the NYSE.

Arden-Mayfair entered the 1970s falling afoul of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In January 1970 the FTC accused the company of receiving illegal brokerage services, from the Chambosse Brokerage Co.

During an interview with Cutter and Creaser magazine in 1975, Frank was quoted as saying: "Old-fashioned dyed-in-the-wool attitudes towards die-making have got to go.

Arden-Mayfair's financial woes came to a head in 1976 with a stockholder revolt led by the Louart Corporation, the major shareholder in the company, with 18 percent of Arden-Mayfair stock.

In July 1977 the Arden-Mayfair board announced a restructuring plan that would create a brand new company, with Arden-Mayfair as its subsidiary.

In 1978, Frank's son Martin joined the ranks, and with a background in mechanical engineering, continued to drive the company forward.

A year later, in July 1979, Arden Group and Louart reached an agreement under which Arden agreed to buy shares held by Louart for $2.6 million and to pay an additional $650,000 in exchange for Louart's dropping all suits against Arden.

By 1984, Arden's seven-store chain, Gelson's, had sales of $120 million and was called "one of the most prosperous small grocers in the United States," by Chain Store Age Executive.

In 1985, the company moved into a purpose built factory unit in Marple, where they remain today.

In June 1986 Arden became involved in a new controversy when it announced a plan to create two separate classes of common stock.

Arden Group was founded in 1989 by Craig A. Spencer, our Chairman and CEO. Over its 32-year operating history, Arden Group has evolved from a third-party asset manager and operating partner to a direct investor and discretionary fund manager with value-add equity and debt investment platforms.

Our investment management business began in 1990, when Arden Group began serving as an asset manager for the FDIC, RTC and lending institutions, having managed in excess of $5.5 billion of CRE assets.

In December 1992 Arden announced plans to spin off TelAutograph and GPS Pool Supply, its communications and swimming pool supply subsidiaries, which accounted for about $77 million of the company's $315.9 million in annual sales.

TelAutograph had been sold to Danka Business Systems in September 1993 for $35.5 million.

In 1998 Arden canceled plans for a similar store on a site in Santa Barbara. It built and developed a shopping center on the site and opened a new Gelson's in January 1996.

In May 1997, however, an arbitrator adjusted the purchase price because the valuation of certain parts of TelAutograph's inventory had been incorrect.

In 1998 Arden canceled plans for a similar store on a site in Santa Barbara.

In 2012, Arden Group launched its private equity fund management business with Arden Real Estate Partners I, L.P. – (“AREP I”), a $66 million discretionary fund targeting value-add investment opportunities.

In mid-2014, Gelson's announced that they had been acquired by TPG, the global private investment firm.

Arden Group was also ranked #5 in Preqin (2015) Top 10 Best Performing Closed End Private Real Estate Funds.

In 2016, Arden Group augmented its equity business with the launching of Arden Credit Fund, LP, a debt investment fund that will provide financing for value-add real estate projects.