Mercy ANURIKA
KITEA Group (KITEA), the furniture retailer in Morocco with 30 stores across 17 cities, alongside its long-standing partner Tana Africa Capital (Tana), a Pan-African private equity firm, announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Kenya’s furniture retailer, Furniture Palace. This marks KITEA’s first acquisition in East Africa as it builds a leading Pan-African furniture retail business serving all segments of the African consumer from the mass market to luxury.
Founded in 2002, Furniture Palace currently operates in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Eldoret across nine showrooms and plans to expand its store network over the coming years. Furniture Palace provides a wide variety of high-quality home, décor, outdoor and office furniture to Kenyan consumers across its two brands – Furniture Palace and Big Save Furniture – addressing respectively the high end and mass market segments of the population.
Since its founding, Furniture Palace has been a leader in innovation, product range and customer experience in the furniture retail market in Kenya. The partnership between KITEA and Furniture Palace will allow both companies to augment their current offerings, benefit from synergies and best practices, build a best-in-class supply chain in Kenya, and drive growth into secondary cities in Kenya as well as expand into other East African markets.
Amine Benkirane, Founder and CEO, KITEA: “KITEA’s investment in Furniture Palace is aligned with our vision to build the best-in-class diversified furniture retail group across Africa. Our goal in Morocco has always been to democratize furniture by providing the best offering and customer experience to Moroccan consumers and we look forward to extending that vision beyond Morocco in partnership with Furniture Palace. We hope to continue to leverage on the strong foundation and brand that has been built by the Furniture Palace founding shareholders and management, and to expand our offering and accumulated know-how to all Kenyan and East African consumers over the coming years.”
The ambition remains the consolidation of KITEA’s leadership position in Morocco and its expansion across the rest of Africa. KITEA will soon become the sole African furniture retail group with operations across North, East, and West Africa through various brands. The Group also has two historical franchisees in Central Africa.
Robert Leke, Principal, Tana: “This transaction is testament to the hard work by KITEA’s management team, enabling the business to grow both in Morocco and beyond. Tana is pleased to support KITEA’s investment into Furniture Palace, delivering a world-class furniture retail experience and offering for consumers across Kenya and East Africa. We are proud to support a visionary business alongside top-notch partners who are ambitious and partnership-oriented.”
Tana, as an active long-term investor and shareholder of KITEA, is backing this partnership with the highly experienced and reputable founding shareholders of Furniture Palace who will continue to run the business, backed by seasoned professionals, in a business with exceptional growth potential, and will work to deliver on the company’s long-term vision of becoming one of Africa’s leading players in its industry.
Noorali Manji and Rahul Haria, respectively Founder and CEO, Furniture Palace: “We are pleased to welcome KITEA on this next chapter of growth for Furniture Palace. We believe there are many synergies and learnings that can be shared between both companies and have a common vision of building a Pan-African leader in furniture retail across Africa. Together with KITEA and Tana, we believe that Furniture Palace will be able to elevate the Kenyan furniture retail sector to new heights that will greatly benefit the Kenya consumer – including the introduction of an expanded product range and extending our quality offering to new segments of the market. We look forward to being a part of this new family and phase of growth.” KITEA and Tana were advised by ASAFO & CO (legal), Grant Thornton (financial), Dalberg (commercial), Knight Frank (real estate) and Africa Matters Ltd (reputational). ENS Africa advised the Furniture Palace shareholders.
This article was written by Pie Kamau and initially published at www.africabusinesscommunities.com. You can start earning money by becoming our Independent Reporter or Contributor. Contact us at IR@downtownafrica.com
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