Sentio Insight has provided financial due diligence services to Growth Partner on their investment in Yorkshire’s rapidly expanding bathroom and tile specialist, Cubico Group (trading as Cubico Bathrooms and Easy Bathrooms).
Growth Partner, which is backed by HomeServe plc founder and CEO Richard Harpin, has made the investment to acquire a significant minority stake in the company, which is the UK’s market leading bathroom and tile product specialist. Operating via its trade-facing brand, Cubico Bathrooms, and its consumer facing brand, Easy Bathrooms, Cubico has a rapidly expanding national footprint of 65 showroom and trade counter stores, alongside its wholesale and growing e-commerce channels.
Cubico was founded in Leeds in 2012 by Managing Director, Craig Waddington, who has over 25 years’ experience in the bathrooms industry. Craig was joined by Sales Director Scott Tattersley and IT Director Steve Browett shortly after setting up the business, with Laura Green joining in 2015 as FD. It now has sales in excess of £45 million and employs over 400 people. In the last 12 months alone, the business has opened 23 new showrooms – including 16 since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March.
Easy Bathrooms’ showrooms offer customers a broad range of its own bathroom products, tiles and accessories, which are showcased across a large number of exceptionally curated displays with modern and innovative trend led designs. All showrooms are supported by an experienced and knowledgeable team of bathroom specialists who are on hand to help with all aspects of designing a customer’s dream bathroom.
With Growth Partner’s investment and Richard Harpin’s strategic insight and expertise in the home services and improvement sectors, Cubico will embark on its next stage of growth. This will be underpinned by continuing to expand its national footprint of stores to over 100 showrooms by 2023. Growth Partner Investment Director, Alex Marsh, led the deal for Growth Partner and joins the board as non-executive director.
Andy Francey at Freeths provided legal advice and Ian Robinson at Sentio provided financial due diligence for Growth Partner while Cubico and its shareholders were advised by Rob Kelly at Schofield Sweeney.
Cubico Managing Director, Craig Waddington said “I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved at Cubico Group in the last eight years, and our recent acceleration in growth – during a difficult year – is what attracted the approach and investment from Growth Partner. With Richard Harpin at the helm, it is an investor which shares our passion for the home improvement sector. They believe in our strategy as we become the number one bathroom and tile brand in the UK – making it an exciting partnership for all involved.
I would like to thank Richard Harpin and his team for their investment, alongside Rob Kelly at Schofield Sweeney, and a special mention to my finance director, Laura Green; who have been formidable in making this deal possible. It is an exciting future for our brand.”
Growth Partner Investment Director, Alex Marsh added “Craig and his team have done an outstanding job to establish Easy Bathrooms as the leading bathroom retail specialist in the UK in a relatively short space of time. The business has an exciting showroom blueprint it has been rolling out successfully and we are fully behind Craig’s plans to continue to grow its footprint to 100+ stores alongside other strategic opportunities.
Richard Harpin has unparalleled knowledge and insight into the home improvements market, and we are delighted to have completed new investments in 2020 into two high growth home improvements businesses led by exceptional entrepreneurs. We are excited to form this partnership with Craig and his team and support them in further accelerating their growth plans.”
