Furniture Village becomes 100% family owned

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Furniture Village has managed a successful exit deal with its shareholders to enable it to become 100% family-owned.

The news means that father and son Peter and Charlie Harrison are now the sole shareholders outside a substantial holding by the company’s employee benefit trust.

Former shareholder and growth capital investor BGF supplied the retailer with two significant investments, the first in 2014, followed by a second in 2015. The funds were used by Furniture Village to increase its store footprint and to bolster its logistics, IT and digital infrastructure to help accelerate growth.

BGF’s exit follows a strong period of profitable growth for Furniture Village whereby it was able to use its internally generated cash reserves to buy out its position in full.

Peter Harrison, chief executive, Furniture Village said: “It has always been a lifelong ambition that the business would be wholly owned by the family. We have now realised that dream thanks to our fantastic people and our principal partners who have all contributed to our journey – my original business partner David Imrie, Peter Grant of Cadogan Estates, Jane Vinson at BGF and Jim Hodkinson our longstanding chairman.

“Charlie and I have a very strong vision for where we would like to take the business next. It is based on a highly collaborative and loyal relationship with our people, excellence in customer service and always being able to offer the highest quality product at good value prices to our customers nationwide.”

Charlie Harrison, commercial director at Furniture Village, added: “In recognition of our team, their strength and success, Furniture Village has also decided to introduce an Employee Benefit Family Partnership which will be a means of sharing the results of great performance with everyone in our special business.”

The news comes ahead of the imminent opening of Furniture Village’s 55^th UK store in Colchester on Boxing Day.