Mothercare: From baby boom to mid-life crisis The upshot is that Parker has not even hung around for the arrival of Mothercare's new chief executive - Simon Calver, the former head of the now Amazon-owned LoveFilm - to unveil his "transformation and growth" strategy. Calver arrives at the end of this month, though Parker insists there has already been "good communication with the new chief executive" over the four-point turnaround plan. The really tough part of this is actually making it happen. We have given him the structural framework," says Parker. The basic plan isn't rocket science - it's recovering the UK to profitability and expanding internationally. Cynics might say that Gordon had similar goals in mind when he pitched up in 2002 and found Mothercare arguably in even worse shape than today - cash-strapped and with empty shelves. His big idea was international expansion, making his corporate mantra the line that "there are 750,000 births every year in the UK and 130m outside the UK." So he built an international business from scratch, with Mothercare today boasting 1,028 stores in 58 countries outside Britain and, before this latest round of closures, 311 in the UK. For a while, the City loved Gordon's overseas adventure. And, even today, no one is quibbling with the growth. International sales rose 16pc in the past year versus a 6.3pc fall in Britain - or 6.2pc on a like-for-like basis. But, apart from joint-ventures in China, India, Australia and the Ukraine, the overseas outlets are franchises. And, on the most recent published numbers, their total £206m sales remain dwarfed by the £587m of baby stuff sold in Britain. Gordon's error was to take his eye off the UK business, which remains the key to the share price. Three profits warnings in quick succession, including a final one that knocked 42pc off the shares in a single day last year, sealed his fate. Parker will not make a similar mistake. He knows that repositioning the UK business remains key to any turnaround, which is why he is forcing through 66 more store closures than Gordon proposed last May. "There's a core business of 200 stores which are profitable today in the UK," says Parker. Two-thirds of the population lives within 30 minutes of these stores. Closing 111 shops will eliminate £13m of losses, so returning the UK business to profit, while Parker has also identified £20m of savings a year from "non-store overhead costs." Mothercare is taking a £35m hit over three years to deliver what amounts to £33m a year of annual savings, including for 730 job losses at the closed stores and up to 98 redundancies at head office. A second part of the strategy will see Mothercare attempt to address one widely perceived shortcoming - its online business - with the launch of a new UK website and 30 new sites overseas. "Mothercare was initially quite quick to embrace the move towards online but it has failed to build it up further," says Joseph Robinson, senior consultant at retailer consultancy Conlumino. Indeed, Parker admits internet turnover is "not big enough - 15pc of sales where we should be over 25pc." Further international expansion and better buying - though a smaller UK store portfolio will hardly help that - are the two other planks of a strategy that Calver will present in detail when Mothercare unveils its full-year results on May 24. Will it work? The market gave Parker the benefit of the doubt on Thursday, pushing the shares up 13.25 to 183p - as befits the man who restructured Whitbread, including dispassionately selling the Marriott hotel franchise he had built up. But not everyone was convinced. Peter Smedley, a Charles Stanley analyst, said: "We believe the turnaround may well prove to be much more complicated and protracted than many think." With a grandchild on the way, Parker must be keen to prove him wrong. After all, he can hardly shop anywhere else.