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Mothercare CEO steps down, board reshuffled amid transformation plan

By Huw Hughes

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Mothercare has announced that its CEO Mark Newton-Jones is stepping down from his position, as well as a number of other changes to its leadership team, in an update of the company’s ongoing transformation plan announced in November.

The maternity and babywear specialist said that Newton-Jones will remain as an executive director until July 2020 as it completes its transformation and has “agreed to make himself available as a non-executive director thereafter.”

Chief financial officer Glyn Hughes will become interim CEO with immediate effect.

Additionally, executive chairman Clive Whiley has become non-executive chairman with effect from 29 March 2020, while Andrew Cook‎, who has been corporate development director at the company since April 2019, will join the main board as chief financial officer with immediate effect.

The company, whose UK business fell into administration in November and has since closed all 79 of its stores, said in the last 12 weeks it has made “significant progress” with its plans to “move forward as a profitable international franchise operation, generating revenues through an asset-light model, operating in over 40 international territories.”

Mothercare ‘broadly on track’ with recapitalisation of group

In December, the retailer announced that Mothercare Global Brand had agreed for Boots UK to become its exclusive franchisee in the UK. “We are on track with the process of finalising the detailed contractual arrangements with Boots, which are expected to last for an initial period of five years,” Mothercare said.

It also said it was “broadly on track” with the planned recapitalisation of the group after raising 8.7 million pounds from its existing investors, and added that here has been “a substantial reduction in the bank debt of the group through the administration of Mothercare UK Limited.” It is continuing to explore options to finalise the recapitalisation of the business.

Commenting on the updates in a statement, Clive Whiley, chairman of Mothercare, said: “Our plans for the final steps of the recapitalisation of the group are in hand and whilst the cash realisation from the Mothercare UK administration was lower than anticipated, the progress that we have made elsewhere means that the financing requirement overall is unchanged from our original plans.

“The board changes announced today align the management of Mothercare with that of its new structure as an international franchise brand and will contribute to a further overhead reduction. In time we plan to add relevant skills and expertise - particularly in brand and product management - to the team to accelerate our development as an international brand owner and operator.”

Photo credit: Mothercare, Facebook

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