Group Info

In the Beginning

While the origins of what is today known as the BFS Barker Furniture Group began 5 decades ago, this only became a reality in more recent years through a vision of what founding members Hillel Cohen and Elan Kabb believed could be possible when interests of independent businesses began converging and have now become a compelling industry proposition.

It all began in 1984 in Industria North Johannesburg, when a serial entrepreneur named Walter Hauser founded Comfort Creations as a manufacturer of premium modern European soft seating and over time also became an importer of stylish Italian furniture.

Two years later, just down the road, another serial entrepreneur and engineer Nils Van Zyl started KMC engineering, followed by KMC Manufacturing a few years later and then founded Barker Street Office Furniture. What began as a small business with a staff complement of just 5 people manufacturing catering equipment and then steel office furniture components to the trade became an industry leading project furniture manufacturer.

Meanwhile, working from home Elan Kabb founded Business Furniture Solutions in 2003, as an office furniture dealer. From Humble beginings and with start up capital of just R14000 and the fortuitously well timed rise of google, Elan managed to turnover R2.4 Million in its first year and then doubled its turnover annually for the first few years. As the business grew rapidly, it expanded with the establishment of a Pretoria Branch together with Dirk Nel and thereafter in Cape Town.

Importing then became the next evolution of the business with the founding of Kabbcorp in 2008. In addition to the imports localising component manufacture lead to Kabbcorp becoming an assembly line of imported and local components.

By 2017 the small BFS group really needed to take the next bold step and enter the manufacturing space directly. Barker Street seemed to be an ideal fit for an acquisition and it was at that point that BFS needed to take a serious look at a group structure that would allow for investors to help fund the next phase of growth for the group.

The Group Emerges

Brighton Capital, a wholly black owned investment company acquired a majority shareholding of the existing companies. Kabb Investment Holdings was then established as the minority shareholder when at the same time, Hillel Cohen co-invested in the group structure, having exited Bivest.

In September 2017 the group then acquired Barker Street Office Furniture as a going concern together with all Assets from KMC engineering and KMC manufacturing which were incorporated into Kabbcorp Manufacturing.

For the next few years the Group had absorbed elements of competitors that had closed down, invested in machinery and tooling to gear for another growth phase. And then COVID happened….. As devastating as COVID was for the office furniture industry it did fortunately provide the BFS-Barker group with some opportunities.

The first opportunity in 2020 was to establish an eCommerce business with Spacery. This diversification opened up an alternate sales channel that was then further expanded upon with the BFS online Shop.

The second opportunity in 2021 was being approached by Herman Miller, the global leader in the office furniture industry, to become the exclusive South African distributor and dealer partner to service Herman Miller multinational clients.

The third opportunity that arose that same year was the acquisition of Comfort Creations, a premium brand soft seating manufacturer and importer of Italian furniture.

These opportunities now galvanised the decades of growth culminating the groups efforts into a diverse and vertically integrated group with complementary specialties. At this juncture the Group is now well positioned to further its growth strategies and as always, keep a keen eye out for any further opportunities.