I have been in and out of these a few times :-)) ..... bumping around their bottom but starting to bounce a little ..... closed @ 87/90p on Friday.

They have fallen from grace because of poor distribution probelens caused by poor management and an out of House warehousing system. THis is being sorted and new guys have replaced the old .....

Great brand name and selling could be overdone ..... anyway I am in for a few @ 90p and will let them ride for a while - not a t trade. Recent director buying around this price


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bought @ 90p - currently moving up at 141/145p 13/05 = plus 56.66% net

Bernard Cragg appointed non exec - brian Hardy steps down

shares are 100/103p up way over 10% since we started



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Mothercare said that it has appointed Bernard Cragg as a Non-executive director to the Board with immediate effect. Bernard Cragg is Chairman of Datamonitor and a Non-executive director of Bank of Ireland, U.K. Financial Services and Bristol & West. Brian Hardy, who is currently a Non-Executive director will step down at Mothercare's Annual General Meeting in July 2003.

Legal and General announce a notifiable interest of 3.97% :-))

Still @ 100/103p against the buy @ 90p :-)) - Will add a few more as funds materialise from my ENIC venture


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Moving up fast ..... in symathy with selfridges I suspect :-))



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On the move again .... over 3% up intraday @ 106/110p .... showing a 15% net gain on these over 9 weeks


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Ticking up lots on no volume - 5 month high @ 110/115p

nice close @ 117/119p on relatively modest volume .... up 30% net since we started and 9% today



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A mini bout of early morning profit taking was soon squashed and we are on the move northwards again ..... 118/123p up over 2% intraday on high volume of nearly 200K


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M+G have added another 127K and have a total of 10.6 million shares or 15.03%

Currently 120/124p


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Ticking up again @ 123/126p ...... highest for 8 months

Lot of talk in recent days that looking after children is one of the fastest growing areas in the service industry - just wondering if this brushes off on to parents spendng more



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Still ticking up @ 126/129p .... keeps looking over bought on the ST indicators .... but becomes even more so

H2 later this month - maybe some good news is on it's way


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Up again on early morning buys ..... something is going on


127/131p

Ticking up again @ 132/136

...... and again @ 135/138 on modest volume ..... now showing a 50% net gain since we started :-))



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Debs have just received a bid and with selfridges also on offer - starts to look interesting



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138/142 up 7.69% on the day .... looks like the retail sector is still looking for consolidation

LONDON (Reuters) - Department store chain Debenhams says it has received an indicative 425 pence per share cash offer from Permira Advisers, valuing the firm at about 1.54 billion pounds.
The firm DEB.L said its board had agreed that the firm's executives could work on the indicative offer proposal.

bouncing back again afer some profit taking ..... now 137/141p with mm buying

Still ticking up on vague rumours ..... now 141/145p up 2.5% on the day and a massive 57% since we started 3 moths ago ..... volumes have been high for the last few days and we are on a new 8 month high for the shares


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A lot of profit taking yesterday but still way above our entry point. Might be prudent to take some profits at this time.

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Mothercare to go with kids' fashion
By Alison Smith
Published: May 16 2003 21:52 | Last Updated: May 16 2003 21:52


Mothercare, the struggling specialist retailer, will next week set out a sharp change in strategy that will put its high street stores at the centre of its plans for revival.




Ben Gordon, who took over as chief executive at the maternity and baby goods chain in December, intends to change the group's focus from expanding the number of large out-of-town stores to making better use of its 170-plus high street sites.

Mothercare plans to make fashion a much greater element in the high street stores, a move that will make it more directly competitive with retailers such as Next and Marks and Spencer in terms of children's wear.

The extra prominence and space given to clothing will be at the expense of items of equipment such as buggies and car seats, which will be restricted to a couple of the most popular models.

The approach was developed in a series of trials when the retailer experimented with what merchandise the high street stores should stock.

These revealed that though many people buy basics such as nappies and baby wipes from supermarkets, customers still expected to be able to buy these in Mothercare if they wished.

So the group has decided that the stores must still stock these to underpin the brand, which has proved resilient in spite of a consistently poor recent trading performance.

What were once ambitious plans to increase the number of out-of-town stores from 63 to at least 100 have been quietly scaled back, partly because of the difficulty finding suitable sites.

Even though the high street stores have not undergone a significant refurbishment programme for more than a decade, the revamp should be considerably cheaper than opening significant new out-of-town sites.

This will be particularly welcome in a group that is not only expected to report a pre-tax loss of 12m for the year just ended, but is also saddled with warehouse and distribution costs that it admits are too high.

Many of Mothercare's recent difficulties have been attributed to the warehouse at Daventry, Northamptonshire, which the group acknowledged last year was not ideally suited to its needs.

On arrival, Mr Gordon carried out a review of the supply chain and concluded that the least-worst course was for the retailer to continue to use the facility rather than undergo the upheaval of a further change.