Sharps Bedrooms

Sharps Bedrooms is a British privately owned fitted bedroom and home office retailer and manufacturer. The company has 31 showrooms across the United Kingdom, with its factory and headquarters in Bilston, West Midlands.[1]

History

Sharps was established in the 1970s in Leicester as a custom bedroom furniture manufacturer and installer.[2] The company was purchased by Michael Ashcroft's group; Hawley Leisure in 1979.[3] Hawley merged Sharps with the newly-acquired Kean and Scott in 1980,[4] a business which would go on to takeover Dolphin Showers and Alpine Double Glazing owner Alpine Holdings from James Gulliver in April 1983,[5][6] Kitchens Direct in April 1984[7] and Moben Group in October 1984.[8][9]

The merged group had a number of underperforming businesses and by December 1984, Kean and Scott had put former Moben group companies; Cold Shield Windows and Mulberry Home Improvements into the hands of the receivers.[10] A rearrangement of Michael Ashcroft's companies saw Kean and Scott come under the control of Henlys Group in 1987[11] and renamed Home Improvement Holdings in 1989.[12] This proved not to be the last ownership change of the 1980s for the group with the group being purchased by Kitchens Direct founder Stephen Boler in May 1989.[13]

Boler renamed the business Limelight[14] in 1991[15] and took the company public in a disastrous floatation in November 1996 which saw the firms value plunge from £175 million to £40 million by March 1998.[16]

The company, by now comprising Sharps, Moben, Kitchens Direct, Dolphin and Portland Consevatories (which Boler had separately acquired),[17] was taken private again in a management buyout in 2000 to become HomeForm Group.[18] HomeForm went into a 'pre-pack' administration in April 2007 which saw the business purchased by US private equity firm; Sun Capital Partners.[19]

In June 2011, Homeform entered administration and Sharps was repurchased by Sun Capital Partners the following month.[20][21] By June 2019, the company's annual turnover exceeded £100 million.[22] In June 2021, Sharps Bedrooms was purchased by Epiris.[23]

Products

Sharps Bedrooms designs and manufactures fitted bedroom, living and home office furniture.[24]

Related companies

Sharps Bedrooms was a subsidiary of a private equity fund managed by Sun European Partners, the European arm of Sun Capital Partners, an American-based private investment firm. Since 2019, Sharps Bedrooms has been owned by Epiris, a private equity firm based in London.[25]

External links