Always interesting to see what information we can discover. Homebase was founded by Sainsbury's and GB-Inno-BM in 1979, the company was then owned by Home Retail Group from October 2006. GB-Inno-BM owns and operates more than 600 Maxi GB and Bigg's Continent hypermarkets. The company is based in Brussels, Belgium. As of July 25, 2000 GB-Inno-BM operates as a subsidiary of Carrefour. B & M was founded by Malcolm Billington as Billington & Mayman and the first store opened in Blackpool, United Kingdom in 1978 and was acquired by Simon and Bobby Arora from Phildrew Investments in December 2004. The chairman is Sir Terry Leahy, the ex-boss of Tesco who got out just before profits started to plunge. Home Retail Group is the subject of a bidding war between Sainsbury and Steinhoff. Fascinating times.