TV-shopping business Ideal Shopping Direct is to
be acquired by private equity firm Inflexion for £78.3
million. Current Ideal directors Mike Hancox and Ian Jebson will
continue to work in the acquired company. They will be joined by
former Halfords chief executive David Hamid who
becomes chairman. Shareholders will vote on the proposal at a
general meeting next month.
Argos‘s managing director Sara Weller has
stepped down after the general merchandise retailer revealed that
operating profit plunged 18 percent from £266.2 million to
£219.0 million in the year to 26th February 2011. Terry
Duddy, chief executive of parent company Home Retail Group will
assume responsibility for Argos in the interim until a permanent
replacement is found. Total sales at Home Retail group, which
also owns Homebase, were down 3 percent to
£5.85 billion. Benchmark operating profit slumped 13 percent
to £251 million during the year.
Despite posting a 25 percent drop in sales to €199 million
(£175 million), parent company Otto Group
says its UK division Freemans Grattan Holdings
performed as planned in fiscal 2010/11, and was on course with
its “successful restructuring”. In a financial
statement, Germany-based Otto said it performed
“excellently” at an international level. Taking FGH’s
performance into account, Otto still increased its European
turnover (excluding Germany) by 9.5 percent to €3.4
billion, with turnover at the Russian operation doubling to
€349 million. Overall group turnover rose by €1.3
billion to €11.4 billion. In the UK, Freemans Grattan
operates Kaleidoscope,
Freemans, and the newly launched
Curvissa.
Turnover at IT products retailer Maplin rose
approximately 5 percent from £203.6 million to £213.1
million in the 53 weeks to 1st January 2011. Pretax profit was
broadly flat at £35.7 million, reports the Yorkshire Business Desk.
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