£100m Worcestershire carpets business acquired in new deal
A £100m turnover Worcestershire-based carpet and flooring business has been acquired in a new private equity deal.
Endless has supported the carve out of construction supplier SIG’s flooring business, which operates from 12 sites across the UK band has its national distribution centre in Redditch.
The deal comes a day after Sheffield-based SIG announced massive pre-tax losses.
Following its separation, the newly-formed florring company will trade as Carpet and Flooring (Trading).
C&F was established in 1992 and now employs more than 380 people across its national branch network.
Lisa Tomlin, managing director, said: “This is a very exciting time for our company and for our people and we are delighted to have Endless as our new partner. Endless was immediately aligned with our growth ambitions and the future feels very bright.
“We are also grateful to SIG for enabling us to deliver this buyout quickly once it was clear that Carpet & Flooring no longer fitted with its core strategy.”
Aidan Robson, partner at Endless, said: “We are delighted to be supporting Lisa Tomlin and the management team with their growth plans for Carpet & Flooring.
“The business has huge potential and we have earmarked significant investment to support the company’s operational and commercial initiatives. This will see the company’s national footprint expand significantly over the coming years.
“As a ‘hands-on’ transformational investor, this is exactly the sort of business we know we can help and we are excited to be taking Carpet & Flooring forward into its next growth phase.”
SIG itself has been hemorrhaging money over the past year, and reported losses of £106.3m for the year to December 2016 earlier this week.
Revenues however, increased 11% to £2.7bn and SIG’s share price jumped more than 7% today on the back of the announcement that a new group chief executive Meinie Oldersma had been appointed.
From a low of 112.0p on opening, SIG’s share price increased to a high of 120.19p today, rising 7.3%, indicating investor confidence in the company’s change of management.
Oldersma has a track record of reversing the fortunes of struggling businesses and driving sales, according to investment platform AJ Bell.
Endless was advised on the deal by Walker Morris (legal) and KPMG (tax). SIG plc was advised by Squire Patton Boggs (legal) and PwC (tax).
Squire Patton Boggs advised SIG and the team consisted of Paul Mann, Jonathan Ross and Craig Pettit.
