Signet's UK jewellery stores kept closing — it still turned down a buyer

Gerald Ratner built Ratners Group into Britain's biggest jewellery retailer, buying Ernest Jones in 1987. In 1991 he joked at an Institute of Directors speech that his products were 'total crap' — the remark made headlines, sales collapsed, and Ratner left the company he built. It was renamed Signet, and his old chain Ratners Jewellers became H. Samuel.

In June 2025, the Daily Mail reported Ratner, then 75 and backed by investors including British banks, was in talks to buy H. Samuel and Ernest Jones back from Signet. Signet dismissed the report, saying the businesses were 'performing well.' Ratner had tried once before — in 2007 he told an audience he had bid £350M for the UK division and been turned down.

By December 2025, Ratner went public again, telling the Times of London he had 'all the money lined up' and would ask Signet's shareholders to back a sale. He said Signet's American management had imposed a US playbook that didn't fit Britain — 'every day, one is closing,' he said of the stores. Signet repeated, in a statement to trade press, that it was 'not engaged in discussions related to a sale' of its UK brands.