New owners from Poland

The Polish tile retailer Nexterio is taking over the tile retail business of the Stark Germany Group, which is operated by the subsidiary Berliner Fliesen Discount GmbH, with effect from November 1, 2024. Nexterio is considered a leading Polish retailer of tiles and bathroom furnishings. The company is taking over the Fliesen-Discount network of locations along with the local teams.

Tile Discount GmbH operates four locations in Berlin, three in Lower Saxony and two in North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Stark Deutschland GmbH, based in Offenbach, and employs around 40 people.

“The core business of Stark Deutschland GmbH is B2B retail, including in the tile sector,” explains Peter Erfeling, Tile Director at Stark Deutschland and Director of Fliesen Discount GmbH, justifying the sale. ”For Fliesen-Discount, as a specialized tile retailer, we are therefore not the ideal long-term owner to drive further development.”

With almost 60 locations and an online shop, Nexterio is a market leader in Poland in the field of affordable tiles and bathroom fittings, as a Stark press release describes the new owner. The company already operates its first store in Germany, in Chemnitz. It also has its first locations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Nexterio has now decided to push ahead with further expansion, particularly in Germany.

“Our success is based on a well-thought-out product range, concise marketing and very affordable prices. We now want to offer all of this as widely as possible on the German market,” says Tomasz Podsiadły, CEO of Nexterio and managing director of the German subsidiary Nexterio.de GmbH.

Nexterio is wholly owned by MS Galleon, which is owned by Michal Solowow and is considered one of the largest investment companies in Central Europe. MS Galleon GmbH is based in Vienna. Its portfolio includes, for example, the Polish retail chain Komfort, which originally specialized in floor coverings with around 160 locations but is now expanding its range to include products for the bathroom, kitchen and living room with its online shop. In the UK, the investor has a 29.9 percent stake in the tile retail chain Topps Tiles, which has around 300 locations.

In the manufacturing sector relevant to the home improvement market, the portfolio includes the Barlinek Group, the world's largest manufacturer of three-layer wooden floors, and the sanitary ceramics and fittings manufacturer Cersanit (parent company of Meissen Keramik). In total, MS…