News roundup--Mothercare buys Blooming Marvellous, Koodos secures investment, Avon buys Silpada

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.