Glasgow Christmas Festive Lights, Debenhams, Argyle Street, Glasgow, Scotland, , UK, G2

Debenhams is a British multinational retailer operating under a department store format in the United Kingdom and Ireland with franchise stores in other countries. The company was founded in the eighteenth century as a single store in London and has now grown to 178 locations across the UK, Ireland and Denmark. It sells a range of clothing, household items and furniture and has been known since 1993 for its 'Designers at Debenhams' brand range. Headquartered in Regent's Place in the London Borough of Camden, the company owns the Danish department store chain, Magasin du Nord, and has a subsidiary in Ireland. The business was formed in 1778 by William Clark, who began trading at 44 Wigmore Street in London as a drapers' store. In 1813, William Debenham became a partner and the corporate name changed to Clark & Debenham. After considerable media speculation about Debenhams' survival, the company announced the largest loss in its history, a pre-tax loss of £491 million, and the closure of up to 50 stores with the potential loss of 4, 000 jobs. On 9 April 2019, the company announced that they had gone into pre-pack administration. On 26 April 2019, the company announced that in addition to rent reductions on all except 39 stores, 22 stores would close after Christmas 2019. This included the recently opened Wolverhampton store (described above) in addition to the following stores: Altrincham, Ashford, Birmingham Fort, Canterbury, Chatham, Eastbourne, Folkestone, Great Yarmouth, Guildford, Kirkcaldy, Orpington, Slough, Southport, Southsea, Staines, Stockton-on-Tees, Walton-on-Thames, Wandsworth, Welwyn Garden City, Wimbledon and Witney.