“It’s the landlords that can’t keep up with our pace”: Rodd & Gunn’s Mike Beagley on the brand’s UK expansion, its “honest” approach, and his ambition to open a pub
New Zealand-based menswear brand Rodd & Gunn’s expansion into the UK physical retail market has been steadily increasing. In 2025, the brand opened four new stores and is now targeting double-digit openings across the UK in 2026 and is in discussions to secure its first shopping centre locations.
These targets are backed by strong growth in sales, which were up by 19% on a like-for-like basis in stores and 26% online in 2025.
“Our covenant is strong, we’ve got a global business and it’s been growing consistently over a long period of time”, says Mike Beagley, CEO of Rodd & Gunn.
“Retail is a tough business, but it’s also very rewarding if you put the effort in” he tells Completely Retail News. He’s speaking from Auckland, where it’s a late summer evening.
“It’s the reason I’m up working at this time of night and will be on later”, he says.
On this side of the planet, the retailer is now looking to expand its current estate. Rodd & Gunn currently operates 10 standalone stores in the UK – located in London, Exeter, Bath, Winchester, Cheltenham, Chester, York, Ashford, Glasgow, and Edinburgh – with four more set to open by April. The brand also trades from 31 leased concessions with John Lewis, along with 12 concessions in independent department stores.
“Success for us is having just one store that’s successful”, says Beagley, “so we don’t really have a budget or a predetermined number for how many stores we’re looking to open.
“I think from a market-side perspective we could probably do with 40 to 50 stores in the UK. But as we go through it could be more or less, you don’t know until you’re on that journey.”
Olly Eades, associate director within the national retail team at Savills – which is leading the retailer’s UK expansion – says that any new stores will complement an existing concessionary portfolio: “Rodd & Gunn do omnichannel really well”, he says.
Olly Eades, associate director of retail at Savills
This is echoed by Beagley, who says that as the brand expands its physical presence, it becomes stronger across its other channels:
“It’s an ecosystem. What we’re seeing is the more stores we open, the better our online gets, the better our concessions get.
“We’ve definitely seen that the more stores we open the more penetration there is online.”
The brand launched on M&S.com in December and recently signed an agreement to trade on Next.com This increased online presence is also informing Rodd & Gunn’s strategy when choosing locations to open new stores:
“The good thing about online is we know where our customers are”, says Beagley, “We’ve got heat maps and we follow it on our journey. When you get customers online you see where the heat is and we’re following the population centres.”
As for the specific areas Rodd & Gunn is targeting, the brand is “geographically agnostic”, says Beagley.
He adds: “I honestly believe that we can work in most markets in the UK, it’s just a question of the economics. We’re not going to go and take sites that don’t make economic sense to us. There’s nothing that can stop us from being diverse, it just depends on the site, the location, and the building.”
Rodd & Gunn’s UK expansion comes amid a resurgence in the menswear category in recent years. The likes of Charles Tyrwhitt have continued to open more stores, whilst TM Lewin made its return to the high street in 2025.
“I think that menswear has grown as a category globally over the last 10 years, says Beagley. “Men have become more concerned with what they wear and that’s become a bigger part of their life. There’s more disposable income going into menswear than there was 10 years ago.”
Olly Eades adds: “I don’t think it would be throwing shade at some of those other UK menswear brands to say they’re trying to do what Rodd & Gunn have been doing for years. I think men in the UK definitely recognise that Rodd & Gunn do what they are currently looking to wear very well.”
Rodd & Gunn’s Cheltenham store / Pete Helme Photography
As for what makes Rodd & Gunn stand out amongst other brands, Beagley stresses “authenticity” in how it operates:
“You’ve never seen us do a CVA and you never will see us do a CVA. I can sit in front of any landlord or creditor and say that Rodd & Gunn always pays its debts. I’ve seen in my career where high-flying companies can do something wrong, and they’ve spent 20 or 40 years building a brand and one year can destroy the business.
“When you’re dealing with us, we’re not sitting behind a faceless corporation, we’re fronting it. I know a lot of other companies do it so it’s not wholly unique. But from an ethics and integrity point of view, I feel it’s really important that we do the right thing all the time.”
Beagley says that another advantage Rodd & Gunn has over its competitors when working with landlords is speed: “We move and make things happen quickly. We’ve got in-house architects and project management. We make decisions quickly. Generally it’s the landlords that can’t keep up with our pace.”
“To have that family-type feel to things is I think really important. It talks to culture and authenticity. Business is business but there’s also a lot of other stuff that sits behind it and culture matters most to me, and within that there’s authenticity and loyalty. That then speaks to who you are as a brand and who you are as a partner.”
Eades adds that this authenticity is something that’s “certainly resonated” with UK landlords when they’ve had meetings with Savills.
“If we circulate something here, I also get agents calling me up saying ‘I don’t have any properties for you, I just want to let you know I love the brand’”, he adds.
The brand’s Antipodean origins are also a factor that contributes to its appeal in the UK, says Beagley. “We do more for New Zealand than New Zealand’s tourism board!”, he jokes.
“What I’ve found in the UK is that there’s a really strong affinity with New Zealand, more so even than Australia. There’s so much connection there”, says Beagley.
Rodd & Gunn’s store on York’s Stonegate / Kat Hannon
Back in Rodd & Gunn’s home markets, the retailer has been expanding its offer to include a food and beverage service within some stores. In Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Queenstown, Rodd & Gunn has launched The Lodge Group, which looks to create a combined shopping and sit-down dining experience.
When asked if this offer has a future in the UK market, Beagley says he has his eyes on another, very British experience:
“I want to open a pub!
“I love hospitality, I love the way it introduces you to new customers, the way that it can transcend from one part of the store to the restaurant and then backwards and forwards. It’s a really unique thing. I definitely think it’s got a role to play in every country we’re in.”
In the meantime however, Rodd & Gunn is taking it slow in introducing a hospitality offer to its UK estate:
“Hospitality is tricky, you need to understand it”, says Beagley, “We’ve been at this 10 years and we treat it as a real business, it still has to make money, it still has to have the brand, culture, and ethos.
“It will happen, it’s just a question of when. It may not be a pub but I’m going to get the pub thing out of my system somehow. You know what will happen, is we’ll open one and I’ll say we need a chain of them!”