Children’s furniture retailer/cataloguer Aspace and Linked
Resourcing, a furniture design and manufacturing company, are to
merge under the Aspace name, with Aspace effectively acquiring
Linked Resourcing. Christopher Lusty, who cofounded Aspace with
Paul Cunningham in 2002, owned Linked Resourcing, which produces
nursery furniture for the high street.
The merged business will create a “vertically integrated
designer, manufacturer, distributor and retailer of nursery and
children’s furniture,” said Cunningham, who becomes
managing director of the merged company. Linked Resourcing
already designs and manufactures most of Aspace’s exclusive range
of children’s furniture. The business will continue to design and
develop exclusive ranges for its other retail customers, which
include Next, John Lewis and Mothercare.
Cunningham stressed that Aspace never has been nor ever will be a
wholesaler, primarily because he wants to retain tight control
over the brand. He told Catalogue/e-business that in a tougher
economy it made more financial sense for Aspace to secure
upstream services such as sourcing and logistics than to acquire
another retail brand.
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