The company was formed in 1986 by the merger of Habitat Mothercare PLC with
British Home Stores PLC. The shareholders of BHS held 55% of the resulting company, and Habitat Mothercare shareholders the remaining 45%. The company's brands included British Home Stores (including their 50% stake in
SavaCentre),
Habitat, Conran's, Conran Design Group, Conran Studios, Mothercare (including Habitat Mothercare's 20% stake in
Fnac and 50% stake in Conran Octopus Publishing 1987 saw the group start to expand with the establishment of the Anonymous retail chain, and the launch of Storecard, the firm's in-house credit card (in association with
Citibank). Speculation in the City that Storehouse was worth less as a whole than the sum of its parts began to circulate during 1987, and culminated in an offer by the property company
Mountleigh in September 1987 which valued the company at £1.8 billion. This was dismissed and quickly followed a bid from a small engineering firm valued at £45 million – Benlox Holdings plc – which was used as a vehicle by financier Peter Earl, valuing Storehouse at £2.007 billion. This too was rejected. Storehouse made a £114.9 million pre-tax profit in 1987–88, but in the following year profits fell 90% to £11.3 million. In 1988 Storehouse appointed a new chief executive, Michael Julien, a former managing director (finance and administration) of
Guinness plc, Julien retired on health grounds in 1992 and Richard Shops was sold to the British retailing giant
Sears plc. Storehouse bought
Children's World from
Boots in 1996, and rebranded all of their superstores as Mothercare World. In 2000, following several years of tough trading for all companies within the group, British Home Stores was sold to
Philip Green for £200m cash. Storehouse then changed its name to
Mothercare plc. ==References==