Swedish kitchen giant Nobia has announced it is pulling out of the UK and selling all its operations – including retail chain Magnet – for £0.
The sale, to UK-based private equity firm Alteri Partners, also includes Gower, Commodore and CIE.
Blaming UK market conditions following Brexit and the Covid pandemic, Nobia says the sale is the ‘next step in the strategic market focus’ started in 2024 and it will now concentrate on sectors closer to home.
“We are committed to increasing the focus on our core Nordic markets, centred around the new factory, Nobia Park, Sweden, and our recognised brands with strong market positions and structurally higher margins,” said Kristoffer Ljungfelt, president and CEO of Nobia.
“Therefore, we have decided to divest the UK operations, giving Nobia the best preconditions for strong profitable growth going forward.”
In a separate statement to investors Nobia said that over the past five years, it has faced “a series of macroeconomic shocks and unprecedented external events that have significantly affected earnings and operating cash flow.”
In the UK, it said market conditions following Brexit and the pandemic have “created structural challenges, requiring significant investment in the store network.”
The UK operations as a whole reported net sales of £352m but with an operating loss of nearly £9m for the 12 months to September 30 2025.
The purchase price for Alteri Partners is £0 but they will assume the obligations for the store leases – which amounts to a liability of just over £60m. Alteri Partners’ current portfolio includes well-known names such as Bensons for Beds as well as CBR Fashion and the Baby Walz Group in Germany.
Kitchen retail chain Magnet, was founded in Yorkshire back in 1918. Nobia bought Magnet in 2001 from Enodis PLC for £134m. At that time it had nearly 500 stores and ran premium bathroom retailer CP Hart. In 2003 it acquired manufacturer Gower for £72m and Commodore and CIE in 2015 for £28m.
Since 2015 the collective UK has turned over around £450m a year and up to 2021 delivered double-digit profit margins. However, performance dipped sharply from 2022 onwards, as market conditions worsened, with profits falling and margins dropping as low as 2.7% in 2023. However, in the last 12 months that has improved to 5.5%.
Sophie Rose, Magnet’s CEO said: that Alteri’s investment is a “real vote of confidence in our business and our people”. She added: “As the UK’s number one specialist kitchen provider, we’ve made significant progress across retail, trade and B2B, and it’s fantastic to have a partner who recognises the strength and potential of these.
“From the momentum we’re seeing in our smaller-format showrooms to the exciting partnerships we’re developing, we’ve built a strong platform for growth. With Alteri’s resources and expertise, we can now accelerate that progress and take our three-year plan even further.”
Similarly, Arnold Vos, investment partner at Alteri Investors added: “We are very excited to support a specialist kitchen provider with such strong heritage and a clear plan for growth. The business has shown resilience in a challenging market and has built solid foundations for the next phase. Its broad capability across the kitchen sector and ability to deliver at scale stand out. We see meaningful opportunity ahead and look forward to supporting the team as they execute their plans.”
Magnet says it currently has over 150 showrooms and just in November the Nobia Q3 results showed that, in isolation, it had returned a profit for the first time in several years.
Magnet’s attempts to transition to an “asset light” store model have been well publicised in recent months, with former UK head George Dymond telling kbbreview last year that the retailer was making a dedicated focus on smaller format stores.
These Q3 results came after Dymond announced he was stepping down from the role, with commercial & customer director Sophie Rose named as his successor.
