Bosses consider sale of TV shopping firm

Successful TV shopping firm, Ideal Shopping Direct (ISD), is investigating different ways of growing the business and have hinted one plan could be to sell up.

As speculation around the company's future grows, ISD’s bosses have released a statement announcing they are to carry out a strategic review into the business.

When the business was first formed in the 1980s, it sold products through adverts in the national press and consumer exhibitions. After a relocation to Peterborough, it launched its own TV home shopping company in 1999, followed by broadcasting on digital satellite 24 hours a day.

In November 2007 it began selling items from a shop in the Rivergate Centre, Peterborough, where it opened the Ideal World Outlet.

Today, the Peterborough-based firm employs about 500 people to run its television studio, warehouse and call centre. ISD’s television channel enjoyed an increase of 18 per cent sales for the first six months of this year, sending the value of the company soaring and offering an opportunity to sell up, say the owners. Any sale could net its founders somewhere in the region of £20 million.

Shares in the company also rose seven per cent to 165.5 pence after full-year forecasts were upgraded at the end of May. The increase is attributed to a continued niche product category strategy and expansion into the pet market.

The firm is expecting to make a “substantial” profit in the first half of 2010 in contrast to a £900,000 trading loss suffered in the first half of 2009.

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