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Littlewoods Retail trades under three main names: Littlewoods Stores, Littlewoods Index and Littlewoods Catalogue Discount Stores (which also goes by the name of Hitchens).

Littlewoods Retail operates through two home shopping channels: Agency Home Shopping - through which it runs a number of catalogues, such as Littlewoods, Janet Fraser, Burlington, Peter Craig and John Moores), and Littlewoods Extra Direct Home Shopping - formerly known as Index Extra.

The business was founded in 1923 by Sir John Moores. It began as a football pools business then expanded into the mail order sector in 1932 and into chain stores five years later. The company's 32 shareholders are all direct descendants of Sir John or his brother Cecil, and inherited their shares in the company upon the death of its founder in 1993.

In November 2001, Littlewoods launched a transactional web site to attract shoppers to the retailer's site. It absorbed the all-inclusive site under the Littlewoods.com umbrella.

Group chief executive Alistair McGeorge announced in April 2002 that there would be a number of changes to the board, management and divisional structure. His first decision was to restructure the core retail operation by separating management of home shopping and high-street divisions.

Littlewoods had been in talks several times about the sale of its home-shopping operation and it was announced in June 2002 that Littlewoods had decided to sell the chain.

In October 2002, the Moores family finally agreed to sell Littlewoods to the Barclay Brothers for £750m. The sale of the high-street stores and the catalogue business marked the end for the Moores family after it sold the pools division in September 2000 for £140m.

Littlewoods acquired GUS' home-shopping operations in May in a £590m deal. The purchase saw Littlewoods gain £1.7bn of home-shopping sales and 19,000 employees. Littlewoods now owns 65% of the UK agency shopping market.

Group turnover            £1894m
Pre-tax profits           £146.6m
UK employees              27,000
(Figures for year to April 30, 2001)
Advertising agency
Barrington Johnson
Media agencies
Zed, ZenithOptimedia
Outdoor agency
Meridian Outdoor
Adspend (year to April 2003)
Direct mail               £18,388,674
Press                     £6,913,881
Outdoor                   £435,006
Radio                     £31,341
Total                     £25,768,902
Source: ACNielsen MMS
New business development marketing director
Alan Evans
Littlewoods stores marketing director
Jim Shannon
Index Stores marketing director

Liz McNamara

Home shopping marketing director

Brian Lunt

UK headquarters

Sir John Moores Building, 100 Old Hall Street, Liverpool L70 1AB

Tel: 0151 235 2222

Fax: 0151 235 3289

Web site: www.littlewoods.co.uk.