page_title: Woolworths Group
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Woolworths Group / History / Later years
caption_attribution_description: Interior of Woolworths, Leigh Road, Eastleigh
context_page_description: Woolworths Group was a listed British company that owned the High Street retail chain Woolworths. It also owned other companies such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK, and book and resource distributor Bertram Books.
  The Woolworths store chain was the main enterprise of the group. Originally a division of the American F. W. Woolworth Company until its sale in the early 1980s, it had more than 800 stores in the UK prior to closure. Woolworths sold many goods and had its own Ladybird children's clothing range, Chad Valley toys, and WorthIt! value range. The chain was the UK's largest buyer of Candyking "pick 'n' mix" sweets. It was sometimes referred to as "Woolies" by the UK media, the general public, and occasionally in its own television commercials. The British company also owned and ran F. W. Woolworth Ireland until 1984 and Woolworths until 2003.
  On 26 November 2008, trading of shares in Woolworths Group was suspended, and its Woolworths and Entertainment UK subsidiaries entered administration. Deloitte closed all 807 Woolworths stores between 27 December 2008 and 6 January 2009, resulting in 27,000 job losses.
context_section_description: The newly independent Woolworths faced severe competitive and financial pressures. The market for physical copies of music, one of Woolworths' main money spinners, shrank in the early 21st century; specialist music chains such as Our Price collapsed. The major supermarket chains expanded into many of Woolworths' product areas, and the fast-expanding Wilkinson challenged it directly on the high street.
  Woolworths did not generally follow the trend started in the 1980s of opening stores at out-of-town relocations. One of its few out-of-town stores opened at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre in 1989, but this closed within a few years due to disappointing trade.
  In an attempt to raise the group's corporate profile, under the chairmanship of Gerald Corbett, Woolworths sponsored a show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2004. Designed by a group of graduate students from Pickard School of Garden Design, including Karl Rushen, Catherine Gamble, Bella Montgomery, Darryl Moore and Rob Whitehead, the contemporary-formal style garden was awarded a silver medal.
  In the middle of 2006 the business launched an in-store collection service for items ordered on their website or in-store, to complement the already established in-store ordering system. In late September 2006, the "Big Red Book" was launched. This was designed to compete directly with the Argos catalogue.
  Woolworths launched the WorthIt! brand as a value range in 2007. The first advertising campaign for the brand aired on 15 June 2007 and introduced the characters of Wooly the sheep and Worth the sheepdog. Further advertising campaigns featured celebrities such as Rolf Harris, Jackie Chan and Kelly Osbourne. The brand covered a wide variety of products including confectionery, electricals, alcohol, jewellery, perfumes and clothing.
  Woolworths had a strongly unionised workforce, with shop stewards such as Paul Thompson of Unite (formerly the Transport and General Workers' Union) particularly active in the north of the UK.
  In July 2008, the board rejected a bid from Iceland founder Malcolm Walker to buy Woolworths' 819 stores for £50m. Walker's bid did not include Entertainment UK or the stake in 2 Entertain, and also avoided taking on Woolworths' debt and pension liabilities.
  On 12 August 2008, Woolworths Group announced the appointment of Steve Johnson, former chief executive officer of Focus DIY, to the post of chief executive. He replaced Trevor Bish-Jones, who had left in June. Woolworths scrapped its interim dividend in September 2008, after it announced a pre-tax loss of £99.7m for the six months to 2 August. At the same time, Johnson outlined a possible turnaround plan to sell 120 stores, axe a quarter of its products, reduce web operations and cut jobs.
  At that time, the retailer's largest shareholder was Iranian property developer Ardeshir Naghshineh, with a 10.2% stake. A consortium led by Icelandic investor Baugur, called Unity owned a 10% stake in Woolworths. In October 2008 Sir Alan Sugar, founder of electronics firm Amstrad, increased his stake in Woolworths to around 4%. Theo Paphitis, owner of stationery retailer Ryman, also stated his interest in the company.
caption: Woolworths became well known for its "pick 'n' mix" sweet selections.
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