HOBBS: FINANCIAL WARNING

SLOANEY staple Hobbs — founded in 1981 by London couple Yoram and Marilyn Anselm — is one of Kate’s High Street favourites. She wore the brand long before she entered The Firm.

Her most-worn Hobbs pieces are coats — most memorably this £279 emerald green Persephone trench she wore on St Patrick’s Day in 2014, and dresses, such as the £169 Animal shirt dress she chose for a charity event in London in 2015. She also turned to Hobbs for her final engagement before giving birth to Prince Louis, in March this year — the £79 polka-dot Rosie top — which promptly sold out worldwide.

FINANCIAL LOSSES: In 2015, Hobbs racked up pretax losses of £15.6 million, after a management shake-up left it with hefty legal fees. The previous year, it was forced to ditch its sister brand, NW3, after a £1.9 million loss.

Even though gross profits jumped 8.7 per cent in 2017, earlier this year, it was named one of the UK’s loss-making retailers, with financial analytics firm Company Watch placing it in its ‘warning area’.

OTHER WOES: In 2017, Hobbs was put up for sale by private equity firm 3i, which bought the business for £111 million in 2004. Its new owner, the South Africa-based Foschini Group, which owns Whistles and Phase Eight, thought the £80 million asking price too high, and secured it for an undisclosed sum.

WHAT THEY SAID: ‘Our sales are up, gross profit is up, our margin rates are steady and we now have a very strong platform to grow.’