B&M is a much loved store across the whole country, with its discounted prices and huge range of furniture and home items – but many people are just learning what the name actually stands for
B&M is a much-loved bargain store with branches up and down the country, offering an enormous range of home items at a discounted price – but not many people know what it stands for.
Most shoppers assume that the name of the bargain chain, which has 659 locations in the UK, is Bargains & More, highlighting the store’s low prices on its products – but that’s not actually the case.
Some brand names become so engrained in our day-to-day lives that it can be hard to think of it as anything else. So when you find out the mind-boggling truth you might not be able to look at the logo the same way again.
To understand the true name of the brand you have to go back to their founder. As it turns out, the actual name stands for Billington & Mayman after the founder of the chain Malcolm Billington and Mayman, a partner in the store.
The store was initially founded in 1978 but it did not get off to the best of starts. Until the previous owner, Cambridge law graduate Simon Arora, bought them in 2004 and turned it into a huge chain worth billions.
And it turns out he didn’t even know what the name stood for. In an interview with the McKinsey Alumni Center, he said: “Someone once told told me that it was obvious – it stands for ‘Bargains and More’. That’s good enough for me.” However, B&M has previously confirmed that the name does indeed stand for Billington & Mayman.
And he wasn’t the only one. B&M fans took to social media to share their confusion, with one person saying: “I thought B&M was bargains & more!”, while another added: “What wait, this can’t be true!”. A third commented: “My mind is blown.”
In 2018, Mr Arora announced his intentions to make B&M the equivalent of Aldi and Lidl in the home store world – he wanted to make them a staple chain for anyone’s furniture needs. Mr Arora retired from the discount retired from the successful retailer in 2022, and new CEO Alex Russo was appointed in September that year.
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A version of this story was first published on April 13 2023
