Mothercare’s full-year results on Thursday showed worldwide retail sales by franchise partners falling to £230.6 million from £280.8 million.

Adjusted EBITDA was down to £3.5 million from £6.9 million but another fall was better news as its net borrowings dropped to £3.7 million from £14.7 million at the year end.

Admittedly, the FY25 results for the 12 months to the end of March covered only 52 weeks while the FY24 figures covered 53 weeks. But the prior year’s extra seven trading days couldn’t account for the wide gap between the two years’ sales and profit figures.

The company, which owns the mother-and-baby/toddler products brand and licenses it to partners, has faced many challenges in recent years and overall store numbers have fallen sharply.

It all meant group adjusted operating profit fell 69% to £2 million while the adjusted loss after tax fell to £2.5 million. It had made a profit on this basis of £3.5 million in the previous year. Yet its statutory profit was up 88% at £6.2 million this time.

Those are the group figures, but for the franchise partners, as mentioned worldwide retail sales fell 18%. Their online retail sales were down 24% at £21.8 million and the total number of stores fell 19% to 372.

Mothercare also said that the almost-complete first half of FY26 has seen another sales drop with franchise partners’ total retail sales down to £80.7 million from £107.7 million in FY25’s first 23 weeks.

The ongoing decline has largely resulted from “the continuing uncertainty in the Middle East and to a lesser extent a winding down of the sales arrangement in the UK [with Boots]. This level of retail sale reduction will result in materially reduced profitability for the group”.

It added that the “global brand is now significantly bigger than our current business is able to extract the full value from. Whilst the creation of the joint venture in India significantly improved our balance sheet and financing position, we are now working towards the step change in the business and the brand. Having successfully demonstrated the inherent strength of the Mothercare brand, we are now accelerating our efforts to return the brand to growth and scale. The current business model could support much higher volumes, and such increased volumes would result in the vast majority of increased income falling straight to the bottom line”.

The firm is in discussions with “several other parties to restore critical mass, especially in the UK market”.

Chairman Clive Whiley said: “We are accelerating discussions with several parties to monetise the operational gearing in the business by restoring critical mass, especially in the UK. This is designed to reinforce the efforts of our talented management team to drive our product offering to new heights, having demonstrated the inherent strength of the Mothercare brand over the last year.”