Furniture in focus for sale

The business is owned by Monash Private Capital, which is understood to have received inbound interest.

Melbourne-based Focus on Furniture is said to be the latest company that could be for sale in the furniture space, with sources reporting that the business has been fielding approaches from prospective buyers.

The business is owned by Monash Private Capital, which is understood to have received inbound interest.

Focus on Furniture has about 24 stores and was placed into administration during 2019, with McGrathNicol’s Barry Kogan, Katherine Sozou and Matthew Caddy involved.

The company then became owned by Monash, which counts well known Australian corporate director Geoff Levy as its chairman, after a deed of company arrangement and is said to be staging a strong performance.

The retailer is said to have generated about $16m of annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the past six months, which was a similar result to the online furniture business Temple & Webster which generated about $14.8m for the same period.

However, Focus on Furniture is said to have better margins.

Monash is receiving approaches at the same time that its upmarket rival Coco Republic is for sale through Allier Capital, as revealed by DataRoom on Monday.

This column understands that ahead of a sales process officially kicking off, one of the companies that will be lining up to take a look at the family-owned Coco Republic is Nick Scali after sales have soared and shares have rallied strongly in the past year at the $816m upmarket furniture retailer.

Meanwhile, Steinhoff International is still said to be keen to sell its stable of furniture brands, including Fantastic Furniture, which made efforts to list as a $430m-plus business last year that were later shelved.

Through its Australian subsidiary Greenlit Brands, Steinhoff also owns Freedom Furniture and Plush which are all earmarked for a sale.

This is at the same time that Quadrant Private Equity has Jefferies Australia trying to find a buyer for its Amart Furniture business, which competes in the same space as Fantastic Furniture.

The understanding is that while some have considered an acquisition of the business, they are unprepared to meet the expectations of its private equity owners, which is about $500m.

Amart, which has about 69 stores throughout Australia, had earlier been generating about $60m in annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

A game plan for a buyout fund could be to roll up a number of furniture retailers together.