Truworths International Ltd is an investment holding and management company based in Cape Town, South Africa. Its main operating companies, Truworths Ltd (Truworths, operating primarily in South Africa) and Office Holdings Ltd (Office, operating primarily in the United Kingdom), are leading retailers of fashion clothing, footwear, homeware and related merchandise.
The Truworths business was founded in 1917 and the company has been listed on the JSE and on the Namibian Stock Exchange since 1998. The Truworths International Group is one of the leading retailers in Africa with 794 stores across the continent and 129 Office stores and concessions in the UK, Germany and the Republic of Ireland, together with a fast-growing online presence.
The Truworths brand is synonymous with superior quality and aspirational fashion and is complemented by a portfolio of some of South Africa’s most desired apparel brands which have been developed over the past four decades. The 1980s saw the rapid expansion of the brand portfolio with the launch of Daniel Hechter under a long-term licence agreement (1984), Inwear (1986), Truworths Man (1988) and Truworths Jewellery (1989). In the 1990s further home-grown brands were launched, namely LTD (1992), Identity and Truworths Elements (1999). Ginger Mary followed in 2004 and Hey Betty in 2011.
Organic brand expansion has been supported by the acquisitions of Young Designers Emporium (2003), Uzzi (2006), Earthaddict, Earthchild and Naartjie (2015), while the acquisition of Loads of Living in 2017 introduced the Group into the homeware market.
Truworths International expanded into the northern hemisphere retail market in 2015 with the acquisition of the Office fashion footwear chain in the United Kingdom. The acquisition spread the Group’s customer base across developed and emerging markets, and diversified the Group’s product offering, sales, earnings and country risk profile.
Office London was introduced in South Africa in 2017 and the brand portfolio was further enhanced in 2019 with the launch of Context, an upmarket offering of fashion, beauty and homeware, and ID Kids, an extension of the Identity brand into kidswear.