Investors put £10m into houseware

Kitchenware Products, a Dublin-based houseware wholesaler, has raised £10 million (€12.7 million) to fund expansion into Britain and Europe. The company, which generated turnover of £15 million last year from sales of houseware to the retail trade in Ireland and the UK, is currently in discussions on a number of potential acquisitions.

More than 80 per cent of the new funding is in the form of equity. Following the fund-raising, ACT Venture Capital owns about 40 per cent of the company, while the Gowan Group has between 35 and 40 per cent. Gowan was a shareholder before the fund-raising. The eight-strong management team led by managing director Mr Jim Murphy will own just over 20 per cent of the company. Kitchenware Products made "substantial" profits in 1999, Mr Murphy said, but he declined to disclose the figures.

The company would aggressively pursue a range of houseware acquisitions to achieve the critical mass necessary to take advantage of "the significant opportunities that are arising from the changing nature of our target market", said Mr Murphy. Target companies would have turnovers in the £10 million to £20 million range, he added.

Preliminary discussions were under way with a number of parties in the UK and with one company in mainland Europe, he said. While he expected to have completed a number of acquisitions by the end of the year, he commented that "it is early days yet". Organic growth should result in turnover of £20 million to £25 million this year, he forecast.

Kitchenware Products is in the houseware business with an emphasis on kitchenware. It employs 40 people between Ireland and Britain, with sales fairly evenly divided between the two markets. Its own brand is Gourmet's Pride and it supplies private label and third-party branded houseware (for example, Pyrex) to the Irish market which is worth about £50 million. Customers include Dunnes Stores, Arnotts, Musgrave/Centra/ Supervalu, Roches Stores, Superquinn and Tesco.

In the UK, where the market is worth about £1 billion, customers include Argos, Asda, BHS, Debenhams, Sainsbury's and Tesco.