[citation needed] The Sikh businessman arrived in the United Kingdom in 1950, from the Punjab and settled in Ely, Cambridgeshire, from where he launched a door-to-door business selling clothing items.

The family bought two retail clothing firms in 1982 – Wiltex and Hartley – which had twenty six indoor market locations across the north of England.

[3][4] In March 2011, it was reported that Peacocks were looking to sell Bonmarché, and in January 2012, the business was sold for an undisclosed sum to private equity group Sun European Partners.

[citation needed] On 24 April 2013, the eight-story Rana Plaza commercial building collapsed in Savar, a sub district near Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

[11][12][13] Of the twenty-nine brands identified as having sourced products from the Rana Plaza factories, only nine attended meetings held in November 2013 to agree on a proposal on compensation to the victims.