MFI Group
 |
|
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1964 |
| Defunct | 2008 2015 |
| Headquarters | London, England, United Kingdom |
| Products | Furniture |
| Parent | Victoria Plum Ltd |
MFI Group Limited was a British furniture retailer, operating under the MFI brand. The company was one of the largest suppliers of kitchens and bedroom furniture in the United Kingdom, and operated mainly in retail parks in out of town locations.
After success in its early decades, it experienced recurring financial problems accompanied by several changes of ownership, and on 26 November 2008, it was announced that the business had been placed into administration.Merchant Equity Partners, headed by Henry Jackson, was the last company to own it, before it was sold to the management in September 2008 for a "small profit". The business ceased trading by 19 December 2008 after the administrators failed to find a buyer.
It struggled to make profits during the 2000s, as chains such as B&Q and Argos introduced their own furniture lines, and rival chain IKEA (who arrived in the United Kingdom in the last half of the 1980s) expanded. Following its closure, the MFI brand was purchased by Victoria Plumb, and was relaunched as an online only retailer on 30 November 2011 only for it to cease trading again in July 2015.
Following a rebrand in 2015, Victoria Plumb became VictoriaPlum.com and announced that it was to expand into other home product categories. As part of this expansion, VictoriaPlum.com announced on 17 March 2016 that it was set to revive the MFI brand name, to represent its exclusive collection of low-cost, value-for-money bedroom furniture.
The MFI Retail business was founded in 1964 as Mullard Furniture Industries by two British men, Noel Lister and Donald Searle, who previously traded in war surplus goods. It was named after Searle's wife's maiden name. The company became a public company in 1971, as MFI Warehouses (the Group). An external manager, Derek Hunt, was recruited soon afterwards.
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