Karrimor
Once Britain's premier technical pack maker. The Haston Alpiniste and KSB boots equipped a generation of British mountaineering. Now a budget label in Sports Direct.
Status: Avoid
- Founded
- 1946
- Website
- karrimor.com
- HQ
- UK
- Manufacturing
- Various
- Ownership type
- Brand licensing (ABG-style)
- Parent
- Frasers Group
- Acquired
- 2004
- Status since
- 2026-07-08
Ownership
Karrimor entered receivership in March 2004. Sports Direct bought the name and IP for about GBP 5 million within days, discarded the manufacturing, and kept the trademark. The site trades under Frasers Group Trading Limited today.
Why Avoid
The mechanism in its purest form: buy the reputation out of receivership, discard the factory, apply the name to cheap product at house-brand margins. The marketing still leans on glories from the 1970s. Ongoing extraction, so Avoid rather than Former Great.
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