The retail fugitive who couldn't escape his past

MICHAEL Hobbs knows all the cliches about retailing being in the blood and being a born shopkeeper. He even tried to escape them by running away to join the Hong Kong police rather than becoming part of the family wholesale cash-and-carry business after leaving school.

Today, the chief executive of Adams Childrenswear, who has nearly 20 years' experience at High Street giants from Burtons to Sears, admits he never really stood a chance of getting away from retailing.

'There I was in Hong Kong, aged 19, quelling riots at the Vietnamese refugee camps by the airport and I thought, ''Hang on, this is a bit drastic'',' he says. 'I realised I wasn't cut out to be a career policeman. I couldn't stand the bullshit culture - so I came home and joined my father's company.

'I was always going to get into retail, I guess. I had been working in my dad's shops evenings and weekends since I was a teenager.'

However, Hobbs, 41, is now grateful that he worked for his family business, first in wholesale and later in retail consultancy, because it gave him what he calls his ' entrepreneurial edge'. It's the quality Hobbs relied on to work his way up in retailing to negotiate the £87 million management buyout of Adams in July 1999 when the Sears empire was broken up. Adams has 450 UK outlets - stand-alone shops and concessions in other stores - and recorded sales of £215m last year.

Hobbs is negotiating with Bridgepoint Capital, the venture capital team that backed the Sears' management buyout, for cash to fund expansion. He is confident Adams will float within 'two to three years'. 'Flotation isn't an option right now,' he says. 'Retail stocks have been doing extremely well in the past few years and there isn't much upside left.

'The recapitalisation will put us in the right position to carry on growing in the way we have been for the past few years, so there's no hurry.' Adams is certainly gaining attention. At the beginning of April, it signed a joint venture with Boots to overhaul the health and beauty retailer's children's clothing range, adding to its portfolio of link-ups with stores such as Sainsbury, Littlewoods and Allders.

It also claims to have equalled the market share of Marks & Spencer in children's clothing and is confident that it can overtake market leader Next 'within the next couple of years'. 'We eat, sleep and breathe kids' clothing,' he says. 'There is no one else in the market who does just childrenswear - even Mothercare does hardware too. We've dedicated a huge amount of time to developing our supply business and design and have the best margins in the industry.'

Hobbs is speaking at Adams' brightly coloured headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, where the firm appears to carry its children-friendly credentials to the extreme. Reception features height wallcharts and a hopscotch plan is painted on the floor. Meeting rooms are labelled Classroom One, Two and Three and there is even a sign over the bike sheds warning 'No Snogging'.

And it doesn't stop there. Though Hobbs talks seriously about a business he clearly loves, he also shares the unchecked, outspoken attitude of a child - quite refreshing in a company boss. He describes with glee how he was recruited to head Laura Ashley's US operations by the then group director Steve Cotter. 'The day he took me on he said to me, ''Hobbs, you are a maverick. I am either going to fire you after 12 months or promote you'',' says Hobbs, who clearly impressed because he managed two years before being headhunted to the Sears Group to lead Adams.

'I have my own way of working,' he says. 'I can't stand companies where it's ''Mister this'' and '' Mister that''. I'm a Michael and I know how I want to work.'

With Hobbs' aspirations to be seen as a retail maverick, it's no surprise that he hugely admires the biggest High Street maverick of them all, Philip Green. They met when Green snapped up the Sears empire for £548m and sold it off piece by piece for an estimated £180m profit.

Hobbs says: 'It was a liberating experience working for Philip. I like the way he does business. He has an eye for a deal that other retailers wouldn't even dream of and he knows how to extract value.

'When I made the offer for Adams, the day before Good Friday in '99, I called Philip on the mobile and he was just tracking down the runway in his Learjet on the way to his house in Monte Carlo. He told me to call back in an hour when he landed and the deal was done. I still speak to him regularly and go to him for advice.'

The expansion programme is occupying much of Hobbs' time and he hopes to have the new finance in place within the next three months. He then plans to tackle growth in the international market, where Adams already has a presence, and push forward with the discussions he has begun with a 'number of potential partners' in America.

So no plans to run away from retail again then? 'Well maybe in five years when Adams is all sorted,' he laughs. 'My family really enjoyed living in the States and I wouldn't mind going back. But it would be difficult - retailing is in my blood.'