The story
The company was founded in 1934 by Ethel Austin, in the front room of her terraced house in Liverpool, helping neighbours with their knitting. This proved so successful, that within five years of going into business, she had opened three shops. The business became a well known and established chain in the North West and North Wales throughout the mid to late twentieth century. Ethel Austin herself died in January 1989, at the age of 88.
In June 2002, the Austin family sold the business to a management team backed by Lloyds Development Capital (LDC) for £55 million. In June 2004, two years later, ABN-AMRO Capital bought the business for £122.5 million. In May 2007, it was announced that the company had won the contract to supply uniforms for the event of Liverpool - European City of Culture 2008.
In November 2007, the company ran new adverts on television, which used the BodyRockers song "I Like the Way (You Move)". At this point, the company had over three hundred stores.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ethel Austin, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3