Endless sells Kiddicare to Worldstores

Harriet Bailey
01 October 2014

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Endless has sold nursery supplies retailer Kiddicare to private equity-backed Worldstores after only two months of ownership.

Under Endless's ownership, Kiddicare was returned to an online store with a physical presence at its Peterborough headquarters. Previous owner Morrisons, which bought the business for £70m in 2011, added a further 10 stores.

As part of the sale to Endless, the grocer retained the leases to the stores and covered costs associated with its exit worth £163m, including redundancies.

According to recent reports, Kiddicare filed documents earlier this month revealing it made a loss of almost £128m in the final year of Morrisons' ownership.

Worldstores stated Kiddicare was not as attractive a prospect when Morrisons was selling the company and it had seen a quick turnaround regarding the transaction.

Previous funding
According to unquote" data, the online retailer has been backed by Balderton Capital since 2009 and has completed three funding rounds. Its series-B in July 2011 raised £8.5m and was led by Advent with participation from Balderton.

In June 2013, Serena Capital led a £10m series-C funding round for the company; both existing backers also took part. The fresh capital was used to expand the company's product line and grow its supplier network.

Endless paid £2m for Kiddicare in July – Morrison supermarkets had acquired it for £70m acquisition three years prior. The private equity house used its third fund – a £220m vehicle that closed above its target of £200m after three months of fundraising – to finance the deal.

Company
Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Peterborough, Kiddicare sells nursery supplies and merchandise for children and young families both online and on the high street. It generated turnover of £80m in the year to February 2014.

Worldstores is an online retailer headquartered in Twickenham selling homeware and furniture via its three main brands: Worldstores.co.uk offers 600,000 home products from 1,600 brands; Casafina.com and modern.co.uk offer furniture and homewares at discounted prices.

Worldstores entered the market in 2008 and has a yearly turnover of more than £80m. The company employs 200 staff.

People
Chris Yates is CEO of Kiddicare. Joe Murray and Richard Tucker are co-CEOs of Worldstores. Darren Forshaw is a partner at Endless.

Adviser
Vendor – Addleshaw Goddard (Legal); Sentio Partners, Ian Marwood, Bridie Robinson (Corporate finance).
Equity – Taylor Wessing (Legal).