Kayfoam Woolfson, the Dublin-based bedding manufacturer, has been acquired by US group Leggett & Platt in a deal estimated to be worth more than €100 million.
A spokeswoman for New York-listed Leggett & Platt, which makes components used in office furniture, bedding and car seats, confirmed the acquisition to The Irish Times, but declined to give financial details.
Representatives for FL Partners, the Irish investment firm that led a takeover of Kayfoam Woolfson in 2007, declined to comment.
Kayfoam Woolfson, which owns bedding brands King Koil, Kaymed and Odearest, recorded a pretax profit of just under €9.1 million on sales of €60.5 million in 2019, according to its most recent set of accounts filed with the Companies Registration Office.
The company was established more than a century ago by William L Woolfson, whose descendents retained a minority stake after FL Partners and clients of the now-defunct Anglo Irish Bank acquired control of the business 14 years ago. The deal at the time was reported to have been worth about €60 million.
The latest accounts list FL Partners' co-founders Peter Crowley and Neill Hughes as owners of a combined 18.9 per cent stake in Kayfoam Woolfson's ultimate parent company, Dayspring Ltd. The group's chief executive David Moffitt and chief financial officer John Sexton control a further 14.1 per cent between them.
Dublin and Kildare plants
Kayfoam Woolfson employs more than 300 people, with plants in Dublin and Kilcullen, Co Kildare. Aside from being a manufacturer of finished consumer, hotel and medical beds, mattresses and complementary products, the company also owns and develops a range of proprietary foam and gel polymer technologies, which it markets to global mattress manufacturers.
Leggett & Platt, founded in 1883, is based in Missouri and employs more than 20,000 people. The company saw its sales decline by 10 per cent last year to $4.28 billion (€3.59 billion) as it navigated the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the company, led by chairman and chief executive Karl Glassman, reported last month that its sales rebounded by a better-than-expected 10 per cent in the first quarter of this year, to $1.15 billion, with strong demand in the residential and automotive markets offset by weakness in sales to aerospace customers.
