Toys retailer/cataloguer Hamleys and department store House of Fraser are taking pains to clarify that though Icelandic investment group Baugur owns shares of them, they are each an independent business and therefore unaffected by Baugur’s well-documented financial woes.

Meanwhile, Baugur has reportedly called in KPMG to “review cash management” at tea retailer/cataloguer Whittard of Chelsea—though it denies that the move is related to Baugur’s other problems.

As for the fate of Baugur, it has denied considering calling in the administrators for its UK business, which includes high-street chains Oasis and Karen Millen. Topshop and BHS owner Sir Philip Green flew out to Reykjavik over the weekend to negotiate a purchase of Baugur’s debt, said by some to exceed £2 billion. But several private equity firms, including Alchemy, Permira and Texas Pacific Group, are said to be bidding for the company as well.

The chief executive of Ideal Shopping Direct, Andrew Fryatt, resigned, effective 10th October. Chairman David Williams will assume his responsibilities until a new chief executive is found. The company, which sells via TV shopping channels and the web, has not disclosed the reason for Fryatt’s departure.

Yes, 2008 is nearly over, but fashion cataloguer Boden has only now got round to releasing its financials for 2007. Annual sales rose 19.5 percent, to £153.6 million for the year ended 31st December. The US accounted for 31 percent of those sales, or £47.8 million—up 35 percent from the previous year. Pretax profit rose 20.7 percent, to £27.4 million. For the first half of 2008, sales were up a more modest 9 percent from the first half of 2007.

Extreme Group, the parent company of extreme-sports lifestyle cataloguer Extremepie.com, is opening its first bricks-and-mortar store, in Oxford on Saturday. In addition to selling apparel and boarding gear, the store will include a workshop where customers can bring in their snowboards to be waxed and serviced. Extreme says that the Oxford store is the “first of many” being planned for the UK and overseas. A second store, in Guildford, Surrey, is scheduled to open early next year.

EBTM, a direct marketer of licensed music-related apparel, is selling its Lowlife accessories brand less than 18 months after acquiring it. The buyer is Plus Brands, a company owned by Lowlife founder (and EBTM shareholder) Dale Masters. EBTM expects the sale, part of a restructuring of its wholesale business, to produce annualised savings of £600,000.

William Powell, a sporting guns and shooting accessories retailer/cataloguer, has relocated from its Birmingham base to a newly refurbished warehouse in Banbury, Oxfordshire. The new 7,500-sq-ft premises include a showroom and despatch facilities. The business was acquired in March by JM Osborne, a firm of chartered surveyors, leisure business consultants and land agents.

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