Who founded the Habitat group of stores?
Groupe Habitat in Paris, in the Montparnasse district. For the next two decades, Habitat continued its expansion in Europe, opening stores in France, Spain and Germany. In the 1980s, Sir Terence Conran merged Habitat into the Storehouse plc group, which included British Home Stores, Richard Shops, Mothercare, Heal's and a 50% share of SavaCentre. In 1992, Habitat joined the Ikano group. Founded by the Swedish businessman Ingvar Kamprad, founder and owner of IKEA, Ikano consisted of independent companies operating in different sectors. During this period, the Kamprad family recruited new talents, such as Vittorio Radice, and consolidated the Habitat brand on the
Habitat (retailer) family writing off the debts of the company and providing €50 million (£45 million) of working capital while Hilco paid about €15m. On 24 June 2011 Hilco, which had owned Habitat UK Ltd since December 2009, announced that it was putting the company into administration. Home Retail Group (owner of Argos and Homebase) purchased the Habitat brand, three central London stores and the UK website. The UK business was registered under the name Habitat Retail Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Home Retail Group. Home Retail Group retained about 100 staff at the London stores and around 50 in head