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- REGIONAL
The managing director of Cookes Furniture, one of the largest independents in the country, says he is confident the market will improve in 2020 after last year proved "undeniably challenging for retail."
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
LifestyleGarden, a division of ScanCom International, will this spring launch what it has described as "the first mass market piece of furniture crafted from recycled plastic waste."
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
Unsecured creditors of West Midlands furniture wholesaler Serene Furnishings will likely get less than three pence in the pound back following the prepack deal that rescued the business last month.
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Shop Direct's transition to become The Very Group has completed with the North West home shopping retailer reporting mid single-digit growth over the festive season at its principal brand.
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Furniture retailer Loaf has appointed a replacement chief financial officer for Tim Parfitt, who left the company for a new role in the beds sector last year.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Home sales fell for the sixth straight week at John Lewis & Partners with the chain annualising against a strong competitor promotion from this time last year, which it price-matched.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
Wood bedroom, living and dining cabinet furniture imports climbed ahead of the year-to-date trend in November on strengthening trade with two of the three biggest Far East markets.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Footfall at out-of-town shopping parks, home to many of the U.K.'s largest furniture and flooring retailers, near held in December despite fewer shoppers frequenting other retail destinations.
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Former lenders to Swoon now control 30 percent of the predominantly ecommerce furniture retailer after the prepack administration deal that rescued the business before Christmas.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Department store chain Beales hopes to tie up a rescue deal within days that will see it emerge in a slimmed down form. It faces being placed into administration if the transaction fails to complete.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
West Midlands case goods wholesaler Heartlands Furniture has been fined after pleading guilty to breaches of the E.U. Timber Regulation (EUTR).
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- REGIONAL
Profits jumped for Ponsford, one of the largest furniture retailers of its type in the country, as the privately-owned company found savings and margin improvement in 2018–19 amid lower turnover.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Marks and Spencer cited lower furniture dispatches as a factor in weaker-than-expected online sales in its third quarter. The run rate subsequently improved while it also narrowed its overall decline in clothing and home sales.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Interim sales jumped 6.0 percent to £585 million for homewares retailer Dunelm with the chain's online channel the main growth driver, it said in a trading update.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
John Lewis & Partners managing director Paula Nickolds is leaving after 25 years with the department store chain. It means she won't take up the newly-created role announced last autumn as part of a management merger with Waitrose.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Furniture and home retailer IKEA is pressing ahead with plans to build a bigger presence in urban areas with a new store slated for Hammersmith, London.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
The sale of furniture chain AHF a year and a half ago gave it the chance to refresh its retail offering and marked the beginning of it reversing a negative sales trend.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
Pier 1 Imports, the North American furniture and home furnishings retailer and among the world's largest in the category, plans to close 450 shops in a huge downsizing of its store network that could reverberate in other markets.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
General merchandise sales trended down for the third consecutive quarter at Argos owner J Sainsbury in the final weeks of 2019, underachieving compared with its grocery and clothing categories.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
A fifth consecutive week of home sales decline at John Lewis suggests the retailer peaked early in the category after cutting prices last autumn.
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- INTERNATIONAL
Otto Group, the diversified retail and logistics giant with global sales of €13.4 billion, has hired former Debenhams CEO Sergio Bucher to its executive board.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Profits before non-cash and debt interest costs jumped by nearly a third at Furniture Village last year as the retailer booked higher sales and initiated its plan to lower overheads.
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- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE
The future of West Midlands furniture wholesaler Serene Furnishings has been secured after the company's business and assets were sold in a prepack administration deal.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
IKEA, the world's largest furniture and home retailer, has agreed to pay $46 million (£35m) to the parents of a young child who died after a piece of furniture tipped over when he climbed on it.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Danish furniture and homewares retailer JYSK says it will open its 20th U.K. store in early March as it kickstarts an opening programme designed to near treble its network by 2024.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Mattressman, the East of England beds retail chain that restructured in the summer of 2018, says it has begun to regain lost ground and can return to profit in the current financial year.
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- REGIONAL
Bath furniture retailer Silcox Son and Wicks is planning a major refurbishment project at its New Street store that will see it close for the bulk of the year ahead.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
A four-store retailer that folded last autumn leaves creditors owed £4.6 million according to a new report, with more than a fifth of its debts due to the tax man.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Underlying profits jumped by a quarter for furniture-to-fashion retailer The White Company in 2018–19 with it citing a strong U.K. store performance and reduced emphasis on discounting.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
An online window dressings retailer has been told to change its promotional message after home furnishings retail giant Dunelm complained to the advertising watchdog.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Home merchandise revenue declined at department store chain John Lewis last week as the retailer closed out 2019 with a fourth straight sales miss.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Storied fashion-to-furnishings retail chain Laura Ashley will downsize its store portfolio again in 2019–20 but there remains an appetite for newness and selective store openings.
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- REGIONAL
Alan Ward, one of the U.K.'s most prominent independent furniture and floorcoverings retailers, has sold its shareholding in its standalone storage business for £6 million.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Sales of home goods were fractionally down at John Lewis in the final full week leading up to Christmas though early clearance offers meant big-ticket furniture lines still made gains.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
The newly-formed Blue Group, owner of U.K. chains Bensons for Beds and Harveys, has combined its retail team into one management structure, expanding the remit of the head of its beds retail business.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Prestige designer furniture retailer Heal's says it made another step forward in profitability in the year to September 2019 despite the loss of sales and stock from the fire at its Chorley warehouse, the cost of which has been detailed for the first time.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Privately-owned retail and leisure group Leekes says profitability improved in 2018–19 despite the challenging retail environment and its hotel business facing competitive and inflationary pressures.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
Falling bed sales won't put United Carpets — the U.K.'s third largest retailer of floorcoverings — off from operating in the category, the retailer has said.
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Business Growth Fund, which has held minority positions in a number of U.K. furniture and flooring businesses, this summer added a stake in the company behind Internet retailer Furniture123 to its portfolio of investments.
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- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
The later fall of Black Friday this year hindered retail sales last month, according to figures out yesterday from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
