Mobalpa owner Fournier to acquire French kitchen brand
Kitchen furniture manufacturer Nobia has received an offer to divest its French brand Hygena to Fournier, which manufacturers the Mobalpa brand for EURO 20million.
Nobia is set to respond to the offer after consultation with employees’ representatives, in accordance with French law.
The reason behind the sale is for the past few years Hygena has impacted negatively on Nobia’s operating profit and divestment of the Hygena brand would see an improvement.
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In 2013 Hygena net sales amounted to EURO 142m and its operating profit was negative EURO 12.6m.
The effect on Nobia’s profit for 2014 is expected to amount to negative SEK 500million, primarily attributed to impairment of goodwill and deferred tax assets and will be reported as restructuring costs
With the Fournier Group, Hygena would get an owner with a long, successful history of furniture trade in France, beneficial to both employees and customers said the CEO of Nobia, Morten Falkenburg.
Nobia manufactures and sells kitchens through around 20 brands including Poggenpohl worldwide, Magnet in the UK; Hygena in France; HTH, Norema, Sigdal, Invita and Marbodal in Scandinavia; Petra, Parma and A la Carte in Finland; ewe, Intuo and FM in Austria.
The Group has approximately 6,600 employees and net sales of about SEK 12 billion in 2013.