tailoring business in 1968, the Willerby tailor stores were added to the GUS portfolio. The company expanded into European markets in 1972 by purchasing the French men's retailer 100,000 Chemises. During the 1970s, the clothing operations management were consolidated under Morrisons Associated Companies, with the company rebranding it's men stores under the Just Pants Plus brand, while the womenswear brands were reduced to Paige, Wilsons and Jax. In 1986, the 246 Paige stores were sold to retail group Combined English Stores. Footwear Retailers In addition to clothing retailers, Isaac Wolfson expanded GUS retail portfolio into the world of Footwear. The first purchase was in 1956 when they acquired the Flateau Group, which included the subsidiaries Henry Playfair, Metropole Shoes and the Metropolitan Boot Co. This soon added to by the purchase of manufacturer and retailer Greenlees & Sons in 1957, whose subsidiaries included Easiphit; Dicks; J.W. Haylock; Peter of Durham; K. Stanton & Sons and Sandra. In 1973, the business was grown further by the purchase of Lennards. The businesses were merged into a new company called Greenlees Lennards Ltd. The combined company was sold to Charterhall during 1988. Other retail and manufacturing growth GUS developed its manufacturing businesses in the 1950s, with products including clothing, bedding, upholstery, textiles and pottery. A joint venture started in 1984 between commercial delivery firm Lex Wilkinson and GUS Transport, better known as White Arrow. During the 1980s, Leonard Wolfson divested much of the companies retail and manufacturing business, to concentrate on mail order, Burberry, finance and property sectors. While divesting the retail businesses, GUS kept hold of the freeholds of the properties and added them to their property business GUS Property Management, leasing the properties back to the purchasing businesses. In 1995, Marks and Spencers and GUS discussed a merger but it was eventually blocked by the M & S board. In 1997, Great Universal Stores appointed Rose Marie Bravo as the new CEO of Burberry given the task of improving the company, which had been hit by the Asian crisis. The company acquired Argos in 1998 in a hostile takeover bid and the UK's second largest online retailer at the time, Jungle.com, in 2000 for £37 million. In 2001 the company changed its name to GUS plc using the identifier GUS on the London Stock Exchange. In November 2002, Homebase was acquired by GUS plc for £900 million, where it formed part