Online Home Retail Limited has completed a successful Management Buy-Out (MBO) led by an original founder of the business, James Hickman, who has bought back the company from Grafton Group plc.
Online Home Retail Limited, trading as www.plumbworld.co.uk, was founded in 1999, with the business serving over 1.5m customers and generating over £26m in annual revenue according to its latest published financial statements.
James Hickman, Managing Director, has said he feels this is the right time for the MBO and being independent will allow the business to take advantage of new opportunities in the online bathroom marketplace.
He commented: “The E-commerce consumer market is very fast moving and intensely competitive. It requires quick decision making, calculated risk taking and a ruthless focus on eliminating avoidable costs. We believe being independent will offer us greater agility and enable us to focus 100% of our efforts on delivering growth and improving profitability.”
Jeremy Cole and David Middleton of Cole Associates Corporate Finance acted as lead advisers to the MBO team on the acquisition and finance-raising. Panoramic’s investment was led by Partner David Wilson and supported by Investment Director David Atkinson.
