Mothercare has acquired the Blooming
Marvellous brand and trademark. In a statement,
Mothercare said it plans to introduce the Blooming Marvellous
range across its network of stores “in due course”.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Mothercare also announced
this morning that group sales in its first quarter to 10th July
rose marginally, up just 0.4 percent. The rise was despite strong
comparatives driven by the relaunch of the Early Learning Centre
in the first quarter last year. In its mail order and online
division, sales did much better-up 13.7 percent. International
sales also delivered strong growth-up 20.3 percent on the same
period last year.
Avon, the direct seller of cosmetics and beauty
products, has agreed to buy the assets of jewellery business
Silpada for an initial payment of approximately
$650 million (£426.1 million). Silpada is a direct seller of
sterling silver jewellery and trades through 32,000 independent
representatives in the US, Canada and the UK as well as
online.
E-Trader, the owner of online fashion site
Koodos, has secured a £2 million investment
from existing backer MMC Ventures to support the growth of the
business. In related news, Koodos today relaunched as a
private-sales website. For more on this see our April cover
story, The
Secret’s Out.
Electronics and maintenance products distributor
Electrocomponents has turned its attention to
social media and formed its own online community called
DesignSpark. The online portal provides
electronics design engineers with information and resources to
help them speed up their design processes.
In its latest trading statement, Electrocomponents saw group
revenue grow by approximately 24 percent year-on-year with the UK
division recording a growth of 12 percent and the international
business growing by around 30 percent in the period from 1st
April to 30th June.
Sportswear etailer Kitbag has signed a deal with
Manchester City Football Club to become its
official retail partner. The five-year deal sees Kitbag operate
and run the club’s retail services across all channels, including
the existing store at the City of Manchester Stadium, Citystore
in the Arndale Centre and the online business. Kitbag will also
have the club’s backing to open branded stores in other parts of
the UK and around the world.
BBC Worldwide has sold its 85 percent shareholding in
BBC Audiobooks, including BBC Audiobooks
America, to AudioGo, a company set up
by former Polygram senior executive, Michael Kuhn, and six
partners. BBC Worldwide will retain a 15 percent stake in the
business. The Bath Chronicle reports that AudioGo will keep
all 100 staff in the city, where it has offices, a studio, and a
mail order store.
The Manchester Evening News reports that
JD Williams, part of multititle catalogue group
N Brown, has submitted its third application to
extend its warehouse in Shaw.
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