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Londis is a UK and Ireland based retail chain. The stores are all owned on a franchise basis.
Originally, Londis in Great Britain was a communally owned company, with each retailer owning a share in the parent company. The name Londis was a contraction of "London District Stores". However, in 2004, the parent company was sold to the Irish Musgraves wholesale chain.
In Ireland, the parent company is owned by ADM Londis Limited (originally Allied Dublin Merchants Limited, later Allied Distributive Merhcants Ltd).. Initally ADM acted as a master franchise of Londis UK, but in 1995 bought the Londis brand in Ireland and Northern Ireland outright. It now has no links with Londis UK, though its former logo (before a 2004 rebranding) was very similar to the Londis UK logo.
A number of petrol stations in Ireland have Londis-branded forecourt stores, due to an agreement with TOP, a major Irish petrol company. These stores, and several high street stores also, were called Londis Topshop. In 2004, ADM Londis and TOP dissolved their agreement. ADM acquired the jointly owned Londis Topshop stores and rebranded them as simply Londis, taking the opportunity to introduce a new Londis logo. ADM Londis also announced the intention to introduce a Londis Plus brand for larger, supermarket-format stores. ADM Londis also announced its intention to change structure from a co-op to a PLC owned by its former members. Shares in ADM Londis plc will not be traded on the Irish Stock Exchange, but on a grey market.
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