Sofa retailer, Poltronesofà, is close to completing a £57 million transformation of 96 UK stores as the company offers UK customers an unmatched choice of ranges and fabrics and an enhanced in-store experience.
The Poltronesofà group operates over 310 stores across Europe and is the market leader in both Italy and France, with a market presence in Belgium, Switzerland, Malta and Cyprus. The Group acquired, entirely with its own cash, the ScS Group in January 2024 in the next stage of its European expansion plans.
The wider group reported European revenues of over €640m, and EBITDA of €122m in 2023, before the ScS acquisition. Preliminary 2024 results for the European business show further EBITDA progress and cash and financial investments of more than €550m available. The financial strength has enabled the extensive strategic investment in the UK store estate. The investment began in June 2024 and is set to be completed at the beginning of August 2025 with the refit of the last 15 stores, setting the stage for sustained growth and a transformed customer experience.
The refit features improved store layout in the style of the European stores. The company has also improved the quality and style of its collection as it focuses on delivering the right offer to UK customers. Poltronesofà’s flexible “any sofa, any fabrics” offer now sets it apart from UK rivals with the inclusion of 66 highly customisable models: which can be ordered in more than 200 different fabrics or leathers, amounting to over 250.000 combinations.
The product and store overhaul also includes it withdrawing from flooring and dining ranges..
The UK business is performing in line with management expectations, with a close to breakeven EBITDA performance on revenues of £233m in the 11 months from the acquisition date (30 January 2024), following the significant investment in the store refit programme. The company is also seeing an important return to order growth in the current year in refitted stores and expects to be highly profitable in 2026 as it reaps the benefit of the first full year of normal trading after the major investment programme.
Poltronesofà Group Chief Financial Officer, Luca Mazzotti, said: “The financial strength of the Poltronesofà business across Europe gives us the ability to invest for growth in the UK and we are already reaping the benefits of that investment.
“Over 30 years in business we have two burning obsessions – the quality of our products and delivering value to our customers. Now we are bringing those two obsessions to our UK customers with amazing store experiences and a superb new range of products and fabrics.
“Poltronesofà acquired ScS to enter a key market and support the next stage of its development, providing the capital needed to accelerate its ambitions. This significant investment – in product, stores and staff – shows us delivering on those promises.”
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