SOUTH AFRICA – Actis, Westbrook Investments and other shareholders agreed to sell their entire interest in Tapestry Home Brands, a South Africa-based home furnishings company, to Johannesburg-listed The Foschini Group for US$150 million.
The JSE-listed retail clothing group is buying the entire share capital from Westbrooke Investments, funds managed by global emerging markets investment firm Actis, as well as the current and previous management of Tapestry.
Some of Tapestry’s other brands include Volpes and The Bed Store. The 17-year-old Tapestry employs approximately 2 500 people. It has manufacturing facilities in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Gqeberha, and Tapestry operates 175 stores across SA, Namibia and Botswana.
“This is an exciting opportunity of scale to acquire a prominent player in the fast-growing consumer home furnishings sector while unlocking manufacturing and distribution synergies with adjacent brands in the TFG stable,” said TFG CEO Anthony Thunström.
TFG said Tapestry’s business model is an excellent strategic fit for the group and will provide it with “exposure to new products and categories as well as new customers that will complement the current TFG customer base”.
“The company has an outstanding management team and could not have wished for a better home than TFG. In the period following the acquisition of Coricraft we developed our business model around the business and consumer advantages and benefits of vertical integration,” Martin Sacks, Executive Chairman of Westbrooke Group and Chairman of Tapestry said.
“Over this period, it was completely contrary to the one-way traffic of offshoring manufacturing and an almost total import supply chain for consumer products in SA.”
With the acquisition, TFG will eventually have nine home consumer brands: @home, @homelivingspace, Jet Home, Coricraft, Volpes, Dial-a-Bed, The Bed Store, Granny Goose, and Biggie Best.
The deal is still subject to approval by competition authorities and the Takeover Regulation Panel, and ironing out issues due to “change of control” in relation to lease agreements for stores.
“Tapestry created 1,000s of manufacturing, retail and support jobs and were able to offer consumers incredible value and personalisation. At the same time, we created last mile capabilities that are today highly sought after in a fast-growing online environment,” Martin Sacks, Executive Chairman of Westbrooke Group and Chairman of Tapestry.
Westbrooke acquired Coricraft in 2005 and since then has grown the group organically and acquisitively, from an initial 12 stores, to over 170 today across South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, with significant runway for further expansion. The group currently employs 2,500 staff and owns 3 manufacturing facilities.
“Whilst Coricraft had a leading position in living and dining, we wanted to bring our model and capabilities to other areas of the home,” said Kevin Utian, who joined as Tapestry CEO in 2012 to lead Tapestry’s growth, and who was previously MD of Nandos.
In 2014, businesses with complementary positions in sleep and bedroom were acquired, being Dial-a-Bed and Volpes.
Actis joined as a significant shareholder in late 2015 when Westbrooke sold a portion of its shares to them.
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