Sunderland’s ScS sold to Italian rival in £100million deal

Sunderland furniture giant ScS is set to be taken over by a European rival in a near £100million deal.

Directors have recommended shareholders accept an offer of £2.80 a share from Italian firm Poltronesofa.

ScS, which has its head office and callcentre in Villiers Street in Sunderland city centre, has around 300 shops in total across Europe.

The company has 100 outlets in the UK and a website offering, as well as the recently bought Snug brand.

ScS was founded in Sunderland in 1894 as a family-owned general home furnishings store, under the name "Suite Centre Sunderland".

By the 1980s, it had grown to eight stores across the North East, and expanded beyond the region after a management buyout in 1993.

The purchase offer from Poltronesofa, which includes a 10p dividend, values ScS at £99.million, a 66% premium on Monday’s closing price.

It sees the Italian enter the UK market for the first time, adding to its existing European operations across Italy, where it has 167 stores; France; Belgium; Switzerland; Cyprus and Malta.

Alan Smith, non-executive chair of ScS, said: “Poltronesofa, based in Italy, is a pan-European sofa retailer that has been successfully pursuing international expansion and ScS, with UK operations, is the next juncture of that strategy.

“The ScS board believes Poltronesofa will bring significant benefits to ScS through its broad industry expertise in addition to providing the necessary capital that would accelerate our current strategy, albeit in a private rather than public sphere.”

Poltronesofa said the deal fits in with its aims to continue growing across Europe.

Chief executive Renzo Ricci said: “As the next step of Poltronesofa’s pan-European expansion, the acquisition represents the best opportunity for Poltronesofa to enter the United Kingdom market of upholstery products.”

He added it will help ScS “realise its full growth potential”.

It is unclear what impact the move will have on jobs.