Martha Department Store Hired Lindsay Brothers To Make Big Money.

Martha Marc, chief executive of the department store, announced the first profitable growth of Martha department in four years, but he rarely mentioned the 65 year old Neal Lindsay (NealLindsey) and 62 year old Mark Mark (Mark Lindsey).

The two brothers, after accepting Martha's three year contract last year, are changing the way this company buys and makes clothes.

There are rumours that Martha has given them an annual salary of millions of pounds.

In the description of the insiders in the fashion industry, these two London billionaires are both attractive and precise in understanding the international clothing supply network.

They also have a residence in the UK, but they are currently living in Hongkong.

They make good friends with business celebrities, such as Topshop's boss Philip Green and Richard Caring, which owns a series of private clubs and restaurants including The Ivy, and Caring also makes clothes for high street fashion.

Lindsay loves the spotlight.

"They are not the kind of ordinary executives.

Their success is brought about by their gamblers' character, "an industry insider commented." but their lives are always brilliant. These two people are people who live 100 miles per hour.

"They were born for the party, two of them from London."

Another industry veteran who met two people in 1980s commented.

The two best known deeds of these brothers are to help Martha, the rival of NEXT, improve the efficiency of purchasing garments.

Under the combined force of two people, NEXT's profitability far exceeds that of Martha, though its turnover is less than half of the latter.

According to their people, Lindsay's clothing industry started in 1960s, when two people entered the business from Gold Sgalyn's uncle's men's clothing store during their extracurricular vacation time.

After that, the two men continued to work for Rael Brook, a shirt manufacturer like Japan Zhongtian.

In the late 1960s, they began sourcing goods from Hongkong and India for the Southern Comfort brand.

In 1975, two people founded the Nashville clothing company, which is a joint venture with Raybeck. Raybeck is a clothing manufacturer and retailer. It once owned 300 stores including The Lord John and Berkertex chain store.

The brothers helped Raybeck enter the field of men's wear, and established an amazing connection with foreign suppliers.

They made their own brand clothing for high street retailers, including Burton group, which owned Debenhams and Topshop and their own Nashville brands at that time.

They searched everywhere for a material and labor cost which was much lower than that in the United Kingdom so that they could make clothes there.

So two people moved to Hongkong in 1970s.

"At that time the industry was burning, and they were both brilliant young men, really real stars," an industry personage revealed, "they are famous for their cool parties."

Neal is tall and his brother is shorter and stronger.

"They are called the Mitchell brothers by the industry."

A former colleague described the role in the soap opera "Eastern man".

In an interview with industry magazine Men 's Wear in 1989, Neal described the relationship between the two people.

"We always work together, and I think that those who know us, like us or not, will understand that our relationship is the strength of our business.

Because we are brothers, many things can be tacit understanding and mutual insight.

And we trust each other completely and completely, which makes our cooperation more powerful. "

After Nashville's fame, Richard Caring came to the door, and they began to take charge of NEXT's procurement in Turkey, Romania, Sri Lanka and other near East countries.

Since then, Nashville has been incorporated into Caring's ICD group, and Lindsay brothers have jointly run and merged the new company, which is called NV manufacturing.

Then Neal settled in Sri Lanka, and Mark was in Romania.

In 2002, Lindsay and Caring sold NV to NEXT, and the brothers stayed for NEXT directly.

The original business merged into NEXT's Far East purchasing business in 2005 and became Next Near East.

Before that, two people were in charge of NEXT's Near East procurement business.

And after 2005 retirement, two people "golden basin wash hands" until Martha came to visit.

The extra profit margin they create for Martha will be rewarded, and so far the situation is quite good.

Despite Martha's department store

The sales volume of household goods business decreased by 2.5% last year, but its gross margin increased by 1.9%, which increased the gross profit of the category by 24 million pounds (about 230 million yuan).

Martha attributed 1.8% of it to improving the efficiency of the procurement process, which analysts say is worth 72 million pounds.

As one of the oldest clothing retailers in Britain, Martha has been struggling for several years in order to improve profits.

Bolland is also trying to emphasize the role of team efforts in the latest performance, but industry experts insist that Lindsay brothers have made a lot of contributions.

"They know what they are doing and have extensive connections.

Martha has never done his own supply chain.

It and some English.

The low group is too deep. Martha needs talents who can get rid of this relationship and deal with problems calmly.

An industry insider who knows Lindsay brothers well.

Since Lindsay brothers have negotiated, some include Dewhirst and Courtaulds.

Long term partners are losing business or squeezing profit margins.

After Martha cut orders in May last year, Bagir group, Israel's suit maker, was forced to issue a profit warning.

Lindsay brothers cut off these ties that lasted for decades, and changed the way they work. Now Martha has more clothing designs from within the company.

Until recently, Martha had only a handful of his own designers, who got a "full range of services" from suppliers and directly purchased different styles of clothing from them.

Now, Martha's internal design team has expanded to the size of 130 people and employed 30 freelancers.

This gives the retailer more control over its product style and has gained a stronger position in negotiations with suppliers.

In 2013, 1/5 of Martha's clothing was directly purchased from suppliers. Now the proportion is about 35%, and the company's goal is to raise the proportion to 60% in 2017.

According to industry sources, Lindsay brothers introduced a bidding system for some basic clothing lines to enable many different suppliers to offer the best quotations for each item.

Some competitors say that this downplay of the long established relationship between suppliers has brought risks to Martha's reputation built on the basis of high ethical standards and sustainable development.