Chairman's Statement

Storehouse PLC
20 July 2000


                  STOREHOUSE AGM STATEMENT

At the Annual General Meeting of Storehouse plc, Chairman, Alan
Smith will today say that the early signs of improved performance
reported at the results meeting in May have continued with
Mothercare's UK on-going chain achieving sales growth of 4.7% in
the 15 weeks to 15 July 2000, an increase of 0.7 per cent on a like-
for-like basis.  Gross margins in the UK on-going chain increased
by 2.2 percentage points.  This performance reflects a period of
major stock clearance last year.  In the International business,
sales grew by 7.2 per cent over the same period.

Shareholders will today vote on a special resolution to change the
name of the Company to Mothercare plc.


Enquiries to:

Alan Smith, Executive Chairman, Storehouse      

Chris Martin, Chief Executive, Mothercare       01923 206187 / 206233

Victoria Sabin/Sara Phillips, Brunswick Group           020 7404 5959