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Woolworths Group

Woolworths Group plc
  • Woolworths
  • Woolies
  • Woolworths Plc
  • FW Woolworth
  • Woolco
  • Big W
Public limited company
Traded as :  : WLW
Industry Retail and distribution
Fate Merged into Very
Predecessor F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd (1909–99)
Successor Woolworths.co.uk (2009–15)
Founded 6 November 1909 in Liverpool, England
Founder Frank Winfield Woolworth
Defunct 6 January 2009 (stores)
13 October 2015 (dissolution)
Headquarters London, England
Area served
UK and Ireland
Key people
2001 to 2007;
Gerald Corbett (Chairman)
Trevor Bish-Jones (CEO)
2007 to 2008/9;
Richard North (Chairman)
Steve Johnson (CEO)
Products General merchandise
Revenue £2,969,600,000 (2008) Increase
Profit £7,500,000 (2008) Decrease
Owner F. W. Woolworth Company
(Woolworths Holdings Company)
Number of employees
400 (2009) Decrease
Parent Public Limited Company
Divisions Woolworths plc
Entertainment UK Ltd
Subsidiaries Big W (UK)
Entertainment UK
Woolies
Woolworths General Store
Ladybird (owned by Shop Direct)
Chad Valley
2 Entertain (co-owned with BBC)
Woolworths Music
Woolworths Premier
Woolworth Records
Website www.woolworthsgroupplc.com (archive copy)

Woolworths Group plc 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, which had more than 800 stores in the UK prior to closure, was the main enterprise of the group, selling many goods and having 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 (Cyprus) until 2003.

On 26 November 2008, trading of shares in Woolworths Group plc 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. Woolworths Group plc entered administration on 27 January 2009, and it was officially dissolved on 13 October 2015.

In February 2009, Shop Direct Group purchased the Woolworths trademark and internet address, which continued as a retail website until its closure in June 2015.

The British branch of the F. W. Woolworth Company, which had been founded in Pennsylvania, F W Woolworth & Co, Ltd was founded by Frank Woolworth in Liverpool, England on 6 November 1909. Frank Woolworth had ancestry in Woolley, Cambridgeshire— Frank claimed he had traced his ancestry through the Founding Fathers of the district to a small farm in middle-England. When Frank eventually travelled to England in 1890, he docked in Liverpool and travelled by train to Stoke on Trent for the purchase of china and glassware for Woolworth's ranges, but also noted his love of England in his diary and his aspirations for bringing the Woolworth name to England:


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