Bathroom retailer sold to group expanding into online plumbing and heating market

An online retailer of bathroom basins and vanity units has been sold to CMO Group, one of the UK’s largest online retailer of building materials.

Whiteholme, a specialist bathroom basin e-commerce company which trades as clickbasin.co.uk, has been acquired for up to £1.25m, of which £1m has been paid on completion and £250,000 is to be deferred for six months

Founded in 2010 and based in Preston, clickbasin.co.uk currently has a range of 320 SKUs comprising bathroom vanity units, bathroom cabinets, wall hung basins, bathroom mirrors and associated products such as taps and waste sets.

The acquisition is part of CMO’s drive to grow its footprint into the plumbing market and follows its acquisition of JTM Plumbing last year.

CMO said Clickbasin operates “in an attractive, growing market” and complements its existing products, “broadening CMO’s integrated plumbing superstore offering which will be launched in Q3 of this year.”

In the year ended 31 March 2021, Whiteholme achieved sales £1.87m and c. £360,000 of EBITDA.

Clickbasin, which will be amalgamated into the launch of Plumbingsuperstore later this year, is expected to contribute EBITDA of c. £50,000 to the Group for the remainder of FY22 and be accretive in its first full year of ownership.

Dean Murray, CEO of CMO Group, said: “Our strategic goal is to provide our customers with everything they need to build or maintain a home, through a simple, convenient and supported shopping experience.

“We will achieve this through adding specialist verticals, either organically or through acquisition, supported by customer centric technology development.

“Today’s acquisition announcement of clickbasin.co.uk more than fits that model, taking our plumbing vertical into a new product area. clickbasin.co.uk, together with JTM Plumbing, will combine to form plumbingsuperstore.co.uk which will be launched in Q3, providing a platform on which to further penetrate the c£800m online Plumbing and Heating market and use the power of our business model to provide leading choice and value to our customers.”

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