Barclay-brothers buy Littlewoods, fashion, uk, clothing, england, british, news

Littlewoods appoints head mature brands

British retailer Littlewoods had appointed Matt Stead brand director of mature brands, following restructuring within the company, reports just-style.com.

Stead joined Littlewoods from Marks & Spencer last year as marketing director. At M&S, he was head of marketing for women's wear.

In this new capacity, Stead will manage a team of about 20 and will report directly to the group chief executive of Littlewoods Shop Direct, Mark Newton-Jones.

www.littlewoods.co.uk
4 December 2005

Littlewoods evening wear

Littlewoods catalogue Even More is moving up market with a range of eveningwear care of designer duo Sadie Frost and Jemima French.

The two women, who launched the successful upmarket FrostFrench label, have named the Even More range French Kiss.
The new collection is on sale on Littlewood's website and in the latest catalogue.

www.littlewoods.co.uk
28 November 2005

New Site for Littlewoods

Littlewoods is to launch an online sportswear business as part of its strategy to grow home shopping through niche product ranges.

The new site, to be called Sport-e.com, is to be launched this summer, although the company has not yet announced a date.

Jessica Brown and Robert Carruthers report that the company has stated the site would focus on leading brads such as Adidas, Nike and Reebok to be followed by other niche sites with different product ranges.

A spokeswoman for Littlewoods confirmed: "Internet sales are big business for us - we are now in the top five non-food retailers. We are expecting great things from this." At present, Littlewoods has it all-inclusive and Extra catalogues online.

The move to exploit the internet is pat of a strategy review at Littlewoods on the retails side. Rose Foster will join the company as chief executive from Monsoon, where she is currently the managing director.

Littlewoods' owners the Barclay brothers are currently waiting for clearance from competition authorities before the GBP 590 m deal to buy GUS' home-shopping division can go through.

25 June 2003
www.Littlewoods.co.uk

Barclay-brothers buy Littlewoods

LW Investment Limited, the newly found investment vehicle of Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay, has acquired British retailer and home shopping company Littlewoods plc for GBP 750 million (1.2 billion euro) in a surprise move. Littlewoods, which has 22,000 employees, 120 Littlewoods stores and 170 Index catalogue showrooms in the UK, is the country's second largest home shopping company.

The Barclay brothers -- knighted twins who have interests spanning property, hotels and the media -- are buying the mail order and office businesses from the Moores family which founded the Littlewoods company 80 years ago in Liverpool. The family said it was a "wrench" to part with the firm but added David and Frederick Barclay shared "our family values and will continue to cherish the business".

It is not the brothers' first foray into retail: they backed entrepreneur Philip Green's takeover of the Sears retail chain in the 1990s. They also control The Business and Scotsman newspapers.

The Liverpool-based company posted a pre-tax profit of GBP 53 million in the year ending April 30, up from GBP 15.9 million the previous year. Retail turnover increased 3 per cent to GBP 1.93 billion. For the year ending April 2003 the company forecasts it will make not less than GBP 83 million profit.

The acquisition is the second large-scale takeover within the past two months. Only in September, British entrepreneur Philip Green, who owns department store chain Bhs, made a successful bid for retail group Arcadia Group plc.