Upholstery News
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Market leader DFS is expanding the number of upholstery ranges it carries in its stores, paving a path for it to onboard new suppliers to the sofa chain.
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- BEDS & MATTRESSES
Vita Group has acquired Belfield's Usleep business unit from NorthEdge Capital in a deal that makes the diversified foam conglomerate one of the country's largest manufacturers of finished mattresses.
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Sofa giant Natuzzi continues to write new orders faster than it can manufacture existing ones according to its incoming CEO, who says the global supplier is prioritising ways to cut lead times.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Sofa Workshop by Timothy Oulton has been granted planning permission to remodel the interior of the listed former Lombok furniture store in central London.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
The CEO of DFS says pushing further into the online bed market is the early focus of a wider plan to diversify the group's revenue base beyond the upholstery category.
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55-store upholstery chain Sofology could follows its sister DFS brand into Ireland or add more smaller stores once its current new store pipeline has been fully unwound.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Rising freight rates have prompted independent retailers to switch buying strategies according to DFS, which has been shielded from the effects thanks to the structural advantage of scale.
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DFS returned a high single-digit net margin in 2020/21 as it reversed a prior-year deficit that had been negatively impacted by the first Covid-lockdown.
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Disruption from the pandemic ended a seven-year run of sales growth for upholstered furniture manufacturer Whitemeadow last year, but the decline looks likely to be short-lived.
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Upholstery shipments jumped by half at the beginning of the second period of 2021 as the sofa sector continued to grab an outsized share of container availability.
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Sofa and carpets retailer ScS has partnered interior designer and TV star Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, introducing a new upholstery programme across its stores and online.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
Record levels of furniture are being despatched out of British factories but nowhere near enough to satisfy demand and bring lead times down to historical norms.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
When the Prime Minister announced the first lockdown back in March last year the fear across the British furniture industry was palpable. Thick red lines were drawn through expense budgets and manufacturers up and down the country prepared for an unwanted game of who could hold their breath for longest.
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Furniture brand Timothy Oulton will grow its retail footprint in central London after agreeing a lease in the neighbourhood bridging the city's financial and creative communities.
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BFM, the trade association for British furniture manufacturers, says the BFM Fabric Show London will return next year, taking place in the week commencing March 7.
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Dunelm said upholstery is among the developing categories it wants extend further into as part of plans to grow its current 1.3 percent share of the furniture market.
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Sofology opened a new store last weekend and will add two more this month as it presses forward with plans to expand. It is doing so under new leadership following CEO Sally Hopson’s decision to step down.
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Bedding and upholstery components distributor Handy has acquired the non-zip related assets and sales of fellow supplier Aero Zip, further expanding a product roster already numbering over 1,500 items.
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Mark Smith has decided to step away from executive duties at upholstery group TCM Living and will be succeeded as CEO by Jonathan Fearn, who is currently the chief financial officer.
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First half revenue in the U.K. and Ireland passed 2020 levels for Stressless brand owner Ekornes as the resumption of trade and store reopenings boosted the upholstery conglomerate.
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Foam conglomerate Recticel reported double-digit revenue and profit growth from the business unit supplying U.K. mattress and sofa manufacturers in the first half of this year.
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Phil Reynolds, technical development manager for furniture and furnishings at test house SATRA, is to lead a key British Standards Institute (BSI) technical committee that will likely influence the U.K.’s furniture fire safety regulations.
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- TRADE & INDUSTRY
British furniture makers are on track to recover all of the lost revenue from a fall in exports last year with a double-digit climb in the value of goods sent overseas in the first six months of 2021.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
The pandemic clipped the wings of the U.K. upholstery industry more than other furniture segments as the value of the market here last year fell to its smallest level since 2013.
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Input price inflation for British furniture makers increased for an eleventh straight month in July as producers continued to wrestle with never-before seen pressures.
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The parent company of Stressless brand owner Ekornes last month agreed a deal worth the equivalent of £61 million to buy out a minority shareholder.
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Upholstery retailer Sofas & Stuff booked a big increase in profits in 2020 despite the pandemic, testament it said to the success of a turnaround plan that has been underway for three years.
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Containers shipped and trucked into the U.K. from China and Poland led to the highest-ever recorded total of upholstered furniture arriving at U.K. ports in the first six months of 2021, new figures show.
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The group behind the Alstons, Ashley Manor, Alexander & James and AMX Design sofa businesses saw strong second quarter revenue growth against comparatives heavily impacted by the U.K. lockdown last spring.
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Natuzzi is opening up its iconic showrooms at High Point, North Carolina to its compatriots, renaming the ship-shaped building as Casa Italia and welcoming in other Italian furniture companies.
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Furnishing fabrics, wallpaper and upholstery supplier Colefax Group doubled profits in 2019/20 despite the pandemic hitting markets worldwide.
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Upholstered furniture manufacturer Whitemeadow has acquired what it described as a significant stake in one of its key foam suppliers.
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Dudley upholstered furniture manufacturer ACL has agreed new debt finance that will support its product development plans including the launch of a recliner line.
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- TRADE & INDUSTRY
The Furniture Industry Research Association has published new guidance for companies in the upholstery and mattress sectors with regard to understanding and complying with chemical regulations.
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Full-year order intake at ScS almost matched 2019/20 trading as demand at the upholstery and flooring retailer oscillated with the opening and closing of its stores amid coronavirus restrictions.
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New department store concessions have helped upholstery vertical Sofa.com expand its physical footprint despite the closures of standalone branches.
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The collaboration with sofa market leader DFS continued to be the jewel in the crown of British lifestyle retailer Joules' licensing programme last year, with it also making inroads into home goods thanks to M&A activity.
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East Midlands upholstery, cabinet and beds distributor Birlea Furniture continued to find profitable growth despite the pandemic in 2019/20 and looks set for more this year.
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West Yorkshire adjustable furniture and mobility aids manufacturer Drive DeVillbiss Healthcare reported lower sales last year as sales to the retail sector were adversely impacted by the pandemic.
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- BEDS & MATTRESSES
The CEO of foam company Recticel said it is difficult to predict when raw material challenges will normalise and cautioned customers that this may yet result in further price increases.
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- UPHOLSTERY
Employees of Lebus, one of the largest sofa makers in the U.K., now own 100 percent of the Lincolnshire manufacturer after its shareholders decided to sell the business.
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Sales and profits declined at Brighouse fabrics supplier Mobus last year but the company said it is well placed to prosper amid a changing landscape in the upholstery sector.
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A return to more normal margin levels boosted profits for the company behind LPD Furniture in 2019/20 with its furniture division achieving big sales growth despite the pandemic.
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The debt repayment schedule agreed with creditors of Celebrity Motion Furniture is progressing as planned as the rise and recline chair maker continues to emerge from the problems of former associated companies.
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Upholstery retailer Sofology will next weekend open its fourth new store this year as it accelerates its overall plan to launch double-digit store numbers across the entirety of 2021.
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Upholstered furniture manufacturer Whitemeadow has hosted its first external Open Day as it looks to attract a new generation of home grown talent into the industry.
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The CEO of Sofa Brands International (SBI) says the upholstery manufacturing group has seen a strong and sustained bounce back since the end of the first lockdown last year.
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Revenue dropped by nearly a third for upholstery importer Scan-Thors (UK) through 2019/20 with the West Yorkshire company citing the dual impact of the pandemic and the closure of Laura Ashley, a significant customer.
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The growth in sofa shipments to the U.K. slowed in the spring as retailers came closer to unwinding late 2020 orders and were left with only digital sales channels to replenish them.
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Lower operating costs helped West London upholstery manufacturer and retailer The Sofa & Chair Company narrow losses last year despite the pandemic impacting sales.
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The southern Italian sofa manufacturer behind the Digiò Leather Sofas brand will launch a new upholstery programme here next week as it looks to build on rapid growth following its reintroduction to the U.K. market last year.
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- DEALS & FINANCE
The Vita Group, one of the largest suppliers to the U.K.'s upholstery and bedding sectors, has acquired Technical Foam Services, a foam conversion business based in Corby, Northamptonshire.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
Pike Textiles, the Cambridgeshire based sampling solutions specialist, has become a member of trade association the British Furniture Manufacturers (BFM).
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Expanding upholstery retailer Sofas & Stuff will next month continue its store buildout programme with the opening of a third new showroom this year.
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Upholstery specialist Sofology is launching a new rental option which gives customers the choice of agreeing monthly payment plans for a fixed period before returning products back to the chain.
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Paloma Faith, the singer, songwriter and actress, has launched her own direct-to-consumer and wholesale interiors brand, majoring in soft furnishings and with plans to expand into furniture.
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One of the U.K.'s largest makers of upholstered furniture for the leisure industry incurred a first-ever loss last year as its principal market was among the hardest hit by Covid.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
DFS, the U.K.'s largest upholstery retailer, has appointed Loraine Martins OBE, director of Diversity and Inclusion at Network Rail since 2012, as an independent non-executive director.
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A showroom on Tottenham Court Road has doubled the number of Noble Souls stores in London as brand owner Timothy Oulton continues its worldwide expansion strategy.
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International trade in upholstered furniture ticked up last year despite Covid-19 wreaking havoc through the supply chain, limiting the ability for manufacturers to produce and retailers to open stores.
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Sofa fabrics supplier Mobus has paid tribute to md Ian Bostock following his decision to retire, saying he made a huge contribution and that it will look to build on his legacy.
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Ships rammed front-to-back with upholstery landed on U.K. shores in the first four months of 2021 with imports up 43 percent year-on-year and 10 percent on a more comparable two-year basis.
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Order intake at upholstery and flooring retailer ScS climbed 79 percent on a comparable two-year basis in the two months after its shops reopened this spring.
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The soft furnishings supplier behind the ILiv brand found margin expansion as it mitigated the impact of a double-digit pandemic-influenced fall in sales last year.
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Pent up demand meant comparable orders almost doubled for DFS as the retailer emerged from lockdown, with online business remaining high but returning closer to pre-Covid levels.
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Demand continues to be high despite supply chain constraints according to the md of Lebus Upholstery, one of the U.K.'s largest sofa manufacturers.
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The U.K. represents a big market opportunity for European companies as producers in the Far East are grappling even tougher supply chain issues than are being experienced here, according to upholstery producer Nicoletti Home.
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Employee numbers at a small-to-medium sized upholstery producer in the North East doubled in the period leading up to and including the early months of the pandemic.
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Upholstery brand Arlo & Jacob has launched a new programme called the Ready Made collection as it looks to take advantage of a surging housing market part-fuelled by the stamp duty holiday.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Losses widened at the group behind the rise and recline chair and adjustable beds brands Middletons and Oak Tree last year though it built increased liquidity through cash management.
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- FLOORCOVERINGS
The acquisition of Arlo & Jacob by upholstery group TCM Living will see floorcoverings added to the retailer's product roster as it leverages wider group manufacturing assets and synergies.
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TCM Living, the upholstery group that owns Alexander & James, Ashley Manor, AMX Design and Alstons, has acquired sofa retailer Arlo & Jacob. It becomes the group's first business-to-consumer brand.
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Lars Larsen Group has added to its roster of international furniture brands with the acquisition of SofaCompany, a €73 million turnover direct-to-consumer brand operating in multiple markets.
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Higher delivered sales, a disposal and judicious cost management helped Italian upholstery conglomerate Natuzzi return to profit in the first quarter of 2021.
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Sofology, Britain's third largest upholstery specialist, has teamed a new A-List celebrity for its latest television advertising campaign, which aired for the first time Monday night.
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Five of the existing leadership team have completed a management buyout at East Midlands sofa designer, importer and distributor Siren Furniture. They plan to expand the business' customer base.
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The managing director of one of the country's largest sofa manufacturers says keeping everybody working through the latest lockdown has proven correct, with it unwinding its order book and demand surging since stores reopened.
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The world's largest leather processing business and a key cog in the global upholstery supply chain says it has developed new technology enabling it to produce leather that inactivates bacteria and viruses, including Covid-19.
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Raw materials and other furniture makers' input costs are rising at their fastest pace in almost 13 years, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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Delivered revenue jumped more a third in the first three months of the year for upholstery group TCM Living, though rising sales costs owing to supply chain challenges weighed on profits.
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- DEALS & FINANCE
A slew of private equity bidders are said to have been shortlisted as a sale of mattress company King Koil China nears a potential conclusion.
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Foam supply giants Greiner and Recticel could unite after the former said it was planning a takeover approach after already agreeing to buy more than a quarter of the company from a third party. Officials will meet Monday to discuss a deal.
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The U.K. arm of upholstery conglomerate La-Z-Boy said it had performed very strongly in a challenging market even if the pandemic overshadowed the last knockings of its just-reported financial year.
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U.K. upholstery imports surged at the end of the first quarter on a mix of higher demand and annualising production problems in China because of the pandemic last year.
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The unwind of pre-lockdown orders wasn't enough to keep revenue positive in the U.K. for Stressless brand owner Ekornes in the first quarter of 2021 as the lockdown prevented an immediate building on full year growth here for last year.
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Italian upholstery vertical Natuzzi has hired a former McKinsey consultant as its new CEO with current incumbent and founder Pasquale Natuzzi to become executive chairman.
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Sofa Club, the upholstery retailer that operates open-plan lounges across major shopping centres, is readying a second Manchester presence amid plans to ramp up its U.K.-wide network.
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The CEO of major foam company Recticel says chemical raw materials supply remains constrained and the situation will endure longer than previously anticipated.
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Upholstery retailer Sofology will open its 48th store ahead of the late May Bank Holiday weekend, the first of ten planned for the entirety of 2021.
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Whitemeadow, the upholstered furniture manufacturer that employs over 650 people across its East Midlands factories, has launched an online Careers Hub.
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Upholstery vertical Sofa.com found extra margin and modest pro-rata sales growth in the first period since it was bought by Frasers Group in 2019.
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Sofa maker Furnico said excellent cost management and internal efficiencies helped it find additional margin last year, mitigating a lockdown-induced turnover drop.
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Upholstery market leader DFS has appointed a new creative agency to manage its advertising account, ending a 10-year association with current incumbent Krow Communications.
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Upholstery conglomerate La-Z-Boy is among a number of investors joining a $15 million Series B funding round for U.S. furniture ecommerce company Floyd.
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Nicoletti Home, the Italian sofa manufacturer, will host a U.K. appointment-only event for its British and Irish furniture customers in Nottingham next month.
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44 people a day lose their lives to bowel cancer in the U.K. and sofa retailer ScS, in partnership with its local football team and broadcaster ITV, organised a stunt to raise awareness of the symptoms.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
New DFS filings disclose the market-leading upholstery group's cash position through the rump of the just-ended lockdown as well as early pandemic figures for two of its furniture retail subsidiaries.
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Profits climbed on higher sales and wider margins last year for sofa manufacturer Ashwood Designs against a backdrop of increasingly difficult market conditions with the impact of the pandemic and Brexit.
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Nicoletti Home says worldwide revenue is up 20 percent so far this year with the Italian sofa maker calling for raw material suppliers to better support manufacturers so the industry can continue to meet demand.
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Sofa Club, the upholstery company that operates open-plan retail lounges in shopping centres, has opened a sixth U.K. location and a fourth in southeast England.
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Upholstery imports into the U.K. jumped by almost a quarter in February despite almost every major source nation for British buyers seeing a year-on-year decline.
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The U.K. is among nine European markets where IKEA will launch sofa covers made out of recycled denim for one of its iconic upholstery designs.
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West Midlands sofa maker back in the black in 2019–20 after adjustments to raw material sourcing yielded margin improvements for the company.
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Italian sofa giant Natuzzi is in talks with a large Vietnamese furniture maker that could see it expand its operations in the Asia Pacific region. It follows a similar arrangement made with the owner of the Kuka brand in 2018.
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Tony Ashwell, who died last month aged 73, was a legendary furniture industry figure who played a key role in building DFS into the largest and most successful sofa retailer in the country.
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Upholstery revenue from customers in Europe climbed double-dight last year for the business that once ran U.K. sofa chain Easy Living Furniture.
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Upstream cost pressures continue to create supply chain difficulties according to the managing director of Wade Spring, whose customers include many of the U.K.'s most important sofa manufacturers.
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Sofa-in-a-box brand Snug has agreed a three-and-a-half year supply chain contract with Wincanton, the logistics giant that already partners a slew of U.K. home furnishings retailers.
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One in every seven pounds owed to consumers creditors of former upholstery retailer Fabb Sofas has gone unclaimed despite the cash being fully-protected and available for refund.
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- UPHOLSTERY
Both of upholstery retailer Sofas & Stuff's latest stores will open April 12 when lockdown restrictions are eased, including one in a prominent former beds showroom.
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- EVENTS
The BFM Fabric Show, which had been due to take place at Twickenham in June, has been postponed and will now take place in February/March of next year.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Former DFS head of buying takes newly-created role at the upholstery and flooring chain, which has also hired a new people director from the travel sector.
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A busy final quarter helped Stressless owner Ekornes achieve full year sales growth in the U.K. and Ireland last year, reversing earlier declines from the upholstery brand.
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A new agreement with U.S. wholesale conglomerate Costco can pave the way for similar partnerships in other world markets, according to recliner maker IMG.
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Video sales interactivity between stores and consumers has snowballed during the past year and will be one of one of the innovations to outlive the pandemic, according to the head of the U.K.'s largest upholstery retailer.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
DFS and ScS together with department store chain John Lewis all released financial statements in the past week and offered a reminder that accounts are not just a statutory document, but an exercise in public relations.
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Clockwork Components, a key supplier of components and accessories to U.K. upholstery and bedding manufacturers, has acquired Motionmex, a longtime distributor of Leggett & Platt recliner mechanisms.
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ScS enjoyed a record first half as it delivered orders taken last year but the sofa and carpets retailer has seen a sharp fall in written business through lockdown despite customers pivoting online.
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Upholstery shipments fell back in January on weaker figures from both China and Poland, the two largest sources of foreign-made sofas sold in the U.K.
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Furniture retailer Loaf, the poster child for an adroitly-executed clicks-to-bricks strategy, has reorganised its corporate structure in readiness for the next chapter in its development.
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Furniture maker Sherborne Upholstery remained profitable and generated cash last year despite sales falling sharply on the back of Covid-induced factory and customer shutdowns.
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DFS, already the largest upholstery producer in the country, is mulling further investment in U.K. sofa manufacturing as the pandemic and Brexit have highlighted global supply chain complexities.
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The giants of British upholstery retail are pushing deeper into the growing sofa-in-a-box market segment to compete with emerging challenger brands and entry-level incumbents such as IKEA.
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The just-launched Cloud Sundae is the third upholstery programme from sofa-in-a-box brand Snug and stretches the company's price architecture into a more premium segment underpinned by new patent-pending technology.
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Revenue was flat for the second straight year at Manchester based converter of curtain and upholstery fabrics Fryett's, according to new figures for the period leading up to the pandemic.
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Lockdowns meant revenue fell in high single-digits for the group behind the Alstons, Ashley Manor and Alexander & James brands last year but high demand outside those periods prompted it to expand its production capability.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
The CEO of Recticel has pinned rising prices for foam at the door of the chemicals sector, citing numerous force majeure events for creating supply shortages of polyols and isocyanates.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Profits more than doubled for the group behind the motion upholstery and beds brands Ashley Anderson and Willowbrook as revenue continued to rise in the lead up to the pandemic and in the period since.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Peter Jenkins, who succeeded Dwell founder Aamir Ahmad as CEO two years ago, is to leave the DFS-owned urban furniture brand.
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- TRADE & INDUSTRY
A combination of high demand and routine maintenance could reignite foam supply issues according to Europur, the European Association of Flexible Polyurethane Foam Block Manufacturers.
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- BEDS & MATTRESSES
A 650 basis point improvement in gross margin helped counter the impact of lower revenue at comfort foam supplier Carpenter in the period leading up to the pandemic.
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The liquidator and lawyers chasing the former owner of Collins & Hayes for a portion of the seven-figure sum his company received for selling its intellectual property have scored a victory in the battle to recoup funds for creditors.
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A glut of containers arriving at U.K. ports from China in December meant sofa imports passed all previous record-highs for the second straight month as the industry rushed to get Christmas orders delivered.
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- ECOMMERCE
Online home, garden and living retailer Cox & Cox continued to build out sales in 2019–20 with it citing rapid growth in the furniture category as a key driver.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
U.K. furniture manufacturers' output was down by more than a fifth in 2020 after falling in 11 of the 12 months of the year as the industry grappled with the virus and restrictions on trade.
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- UPHOLSTERY
BFM Fabric Show London is to take place at Twickenham Stadium from June 8–9, 2021, subject to small indoor trade events being permitted at the time.
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- TRADE & INDUSTRY
The Furniture Makers' Company, the trade charity and livery company, has enlisted captains of industry to be panellists on the first of its four webinars launching this month.
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- UPHOLSTERY
General merchandise retailer Next put more upholstery volume through its own Yorkshire sofa factory in the run up to the pandemic while expanding headcount by 35 percent.
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Lectra, a major supplier of machinery, software and consultancy to U.K. and global sofa manufacturers, has agreed to acquire rival Gerber Technologies in a deal worth €300 million.
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Timothy Oulton is taking its recently-acquired Sofa Workshop brand into international markets for the first time. Here in the U.K., it also plans to add a second London showroom for its Noble Souls brand.
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Harvey Roberts has been appointed managing director at upholstery manufacturer and distributor Hydeline Furniture.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
Routine factory maintenance in the upstream foam supply chain could lead to further disruption for furniture manufacturers and their retail customers later this year, BFM has warned.
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The Chinese furniture manufacturing conglomerate that bought HTL in 2016 says it will sustain a financial hit after writing down the value of its investment in the leather sofa maker.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
The number of upholstery, beds and cabinet related trademark applications filed by Next in recent weeks is more than double the combined total lodged by the retail giant across those categories over the past five years.
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Upholstery conglomerate Man Wah Holdings successfully raised HK$2.36 billion (£222m) from investors following the planned share placing it had earlier signposted mid-January.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
The co-founders of soft seating category leader Bazaar Group have sold a majority stake in the business to Comhar Capital to help fund expansion in the U.K. and mainland Europe.
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- UPHOLSTERY
The company that last summer bought the business and assets of one of the U.K.'s first vertically-integrated direct-to-consumer sofa brands has booked six-figure profits.
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- OPINION & ANALYSIS
This is a pivotal period in time for ScS, Britain's second largest upholstery retailer, as it adjusts to the departures of a long-time financial backer and its highest ranking executive.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
Colefax Group, the fabrics and wallpaper company with a big international business, says sales have been more resilient despite the imposition of new restrictions across the U.K. and export markets.
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- UPHOLSTERY
Half-year EBIT trebled as high-end upholstery manufacturer Kingcome Sofas found extra margin in the six months to end October.
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