Mothercare

The company was founded by Selim Zilkha and Sir James Goldsmith in 1961.[2] It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1972.[2]

In 1982, the company merged with Habitat[2] to form Habitat Mothercare plc. In 1986, Habitat Mothercare plc merged with British Home Stores, to form Storehouse plc.[2] In January 1996, it bought Children's World from Boots,[3] and rebranded these stores as Mothercare World. In May 2000, the Bhs stores were sold to Philip Green,[3] and Storehouse reverted to the Mothercare brand.[3]

In June 2007, Mothercare bought Early Learning Centre (ELC) for £85 million.[4] In October 2007, it launched Gurgle, a pregnancy and parenting social networking website.[5] In November 2009, Mothercare acquired the 50% of Gurgle that it did not already own.[6]

In July 2010, Mothercare bought the trademark and brand of Blooming Marvellous, a privately owned rival.[7]

In May 2018, it was confirmed that Mothercare would close 50 stores in the United Kingdom under company voluntary arrangement schemes affecting three subsidiaries: Mothercare UK Limited, Early Learning Centre Limited and Childrens World Limited.[1] The Early Learning Centre business – which operated in 80 UK stores and 400 overseas franchises – was sold to the Entertainer group in March 2019.[8]

During the 2019 financial year, the company's Watford headquarters was sold in a leaseback transaction which raised £14.5M.[1] In July 2019, the company said it was planning to spin off its UK retail business due to decreased sales. The company reported that UK store sales fell down by 23.2%, while online sales in the UK were down by 12.1%. The company recorded a worldwide sales drop of 9.4%.[9]

In November 2019, the company put Mothercare UK (and Mothercare Business Services) into administration.[10] This meant all the UK shops and the UK website closed soon after.[11]

The company operated online, on high streets and in out-of-town retail parks. In November 2009 it had over 1,060 stores worldwide, of which 389 were in the United Kingdom, and 671 were in 38 other countries.[12]

In January 2019, Mothercare announced that its store closure programme was ahead of schedule and the group was on course to have 79 shops by the end of March 2019.[13]

Following the closure of the UK business, from mid-2020 some Mothercare-branded products were to be sold by Boots, both online and in stores.[14]

In September 2014, Mothercare made a nine-for-ten rights issue at 125p per share, a discount of 34.2 per cent to the then current share price, in order to raise £95m net of expenses, to be used to pay off £40 million in loans.[15] By March 2018, Mothercare were in talks with the banks to waive their covenants, causing the company's share price to fall by one third to 22 pence per share. Mothercare has a pension shortfall of £80m.[16]

• Official website