Focus DIY sold

Focus DIY, the British DIY retailer, has been sold to the private equity firm Cerberus for the nominal sum of £ 1. The new owners are taking on the chain's debts of £ 174 mio and paying out £ 40 mio - 40 p in the £ 1 - to the bondholders of the third-largest British DIY business. Focus DIY operates 256 DIY stores and employs a workforce of 7 000. The decision to put the company up for sale became clear to the previous owners, the private equity firms Duke Street Capital and Apax, at the end of their financial year in October 2006: underlying profits were £ 42.7 mio on sales that had dropped by five per cent to £ 702 mio.