Mountain Warehouse

A Mountain Warehouse in Keswick, formerly a Woolworths store

Mountain Warehouse is a British outdoor retailer selling equipment for hiking, camping, skiing and cycling.

Founded in 1997 by Mark Neale; Mountain Warehouse has grown from a single outlet store to over 200 stores in the UK and Europe.

Stores

Mountain Warehouse has over 220 stores in the UK, North American, Europe, including stores in Dublin in Ireland, Vienna in Austria and stores in Poland including Warsaw.

The first Mountain Warehouse store opened in 1997. By August 2002 Mountain Warehouse had opened a further 13 stores in factory outlet centres in the UK and one in Vienna, as well as three concession stores in UK garden centres.

The London Covent Garden store was the first of Mountain Warehouse’s high street stores. There are four Mountain Warehouse stores in London the others on Regent Street, in Putney and the newest London store open in Fulham in December 2013.

Mountain Warehouse bought six of the former Woolworths sites including Fort William, Scotland, St Ives in Cornwall and Buxton in Derbyshire.

In July 2013 the company unveiled plans to increase store numbers from 160 to 200 by the end of 2014.

Mountain Warehouse has continued to secure premises in market towns and locations popular with walkers and holidaymakers. In November 2013 CEO Mark Neale said he plans to more than double the current store count in Europe to 300 with further plans to expand overseas and grow the online business.

Mountain Warehouse has opened its first North America outlet store in Toronto, Canada early 2014. It has since further expanded to other North American locations including New Jersey, United States and Vancouver, Canada.

Mountain Warehouse’s headquarters are located in Victoria, London.

History

In 1997 Mountain Warehouse was founded as the retail partner of Karrimor International, the UK based outdoor clothing and equipment manufacturer. Investment company 21 Invest (now Investindustrial) were Karrimor’s lead investor.

21 Invest sold Karrimor’s core business to South African Leisure group Cullinan Holdings in February 1999. The stores, that were initially branded Karrimor, were subsequently re-branded to Mountain Warehouse. Mountain Warehouse sold multi-branded outdoor clothing and equipment as well as its recently launched own brand of clothing.

In August 2002 NBGI Private Equity acquired the business from 21 Invest and managing Director Mark Neale buying a majority stake in the company. CEO Neale reinvested most of his proceeds into the new acquisition. In the years that NBGI worked with Mountain Warehouse their own brand product offering increased from 5% to 80%.

In July 2007 Arev via KCAJ, its Icelandic investment fund, acquired a £15m business stake in a tertiary buyout from NBGI Private Equity.[5] A majority shareholding was procured by Mountain Warehouse management.

In August 2010 the private-equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, LDC, took a 23% minority stake in the business as part of a £47m buyout.[7] The mid-market private equity division more than doubled its original investment.

In November 2013 the management team led by founder and CEO Mark Neale bought out minority shareholder LDC to take full ownership of the retail chain. Mr Neale personally owns 85% of the business. The £85m deal was backed by the Royal Bank of Scotland RBS and asset management firm Alcentra.

Products

Mountain Warehouse has grown from a stock clearance business selling only branded products to a business that sells mainly own brand clothing, footwear and equipment. In 2004 own brands including Mountain Life, Parallel and Snapdragon made up 10% off the businesses products but by 2007 own brand products made up 65%.

In 2010 the retailer introduced a more technical clothing range, Mountainlife Extreme. The Mountainlife Extreme clothing range was designed to compete with higher end brands such as The North Face and Berghaus.

The Mountainlife and Parallel branding has gradually been phased out with all clothing, footwear and equipment now branded with Mountain Warehouse. Mountainlife Extreme was replaced by Mountain Warehouse Extreme, with footwear, accessories and equipment also included in the range.

External links

• Official website