Hilding Anders UK bed division makes £9.6m loss in 2008 following restructuring

17th November 2009 | beds | The owner of the Dunlopillo, Slumberland, Myer's and Staples bed brands made a £9.6m pre tax loss through 2008 following tough economic conditions and what it described as 'significant changes to the business.'

The loss, lodged in the past few days with Companies House, was recorded by Horatio Myer & Co, the only one of Hilding Anders' nine UK subsidiaries to file full profit and loss accounts for the 12 month period, and is thought to represent the full suite of HA UK manufactured bed brands.

No sales breakdown by brand were reported, but the firm did say that the consolidation of its manufacturing to Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, which took place during the year, contributed about £4m worth of losses, while 'continuing improvements made to the business' resulted in exceptional redundancy and restructuring costs of £2m.

Group sales for the year were £43.5m.

Hilding Anders is a EUR 750m Swedish bed group that owns bed brands across the world. It is ultimately owned by British private equity group Candover which, according to a Financial Times article published in late October, recently invested about £34m to help restructure group debts and maintain a majority shareholding.

In the UK, Hilding Anders subsidiaries include a number of dormant companies (Dunlopillo, Myer's Comfortable Beds, Brownmont, Staples & Co, and Buckingham Beds), while accounts filed for Slumberland Ltd and Hilding Anders UK plc cite principal activities as being a holding company and a business generating license income to fund the company's pension scheme respectively.