Gateway Corporation
1875 Mr J H Mills opened a small shop in Bristol[1]
1950 Renamed 14 J H Mills stores as Gateway supermarkets
1977 Linfood Holdings acquired Gateway
1983 70 Frank Dee stores, belonging to Linfood, converted to Gateway; Linfood Holdings was renamed Dee Corporation
1983-7 Acquired Keymarkets, Lennons, International Stores, Fine Fare and Carrefour hypermarkets
1988 sold Linfood Cash and Carry to Booker plc which removed any potential for conflict of interest affecting its small shop customers. As Gateway accounted for the great majority of the business, Dee Corporation could be renamed ‘’’Gateway’’’
1989 Gateway had about 400 stores when it received an unsolicited bid from Isosceles, a financial group put together for the purpose. If successful, Isosceles planned to sell the 62 larger supermarkets to Asda and concentrate on the remainder[2]; eventually Isosceles succeeded in winning control[3], sold the Medicare chain of chemists to Kingfisher and 60 larger stores to Asda; plans were being developed to sell the US Hermans chain; the larger of the remaining stores were being rebranded Somerfield Fine Fresh Foods [4]
1991 Sold 42 smaller stores to Kwik Save
1994 Gateway Foodmarkets was renamed Somerfield Stores
1996 Flotation as a public company[5].
1998 Somerfield acquired Kwik Save Group, with 880 stores