Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
Art Van Sells Mattress Factory to Blue Bell
December 12,
2017 by Larry Thomas in Business Strategy, Industry 
Rapidly expanding Art Van Furniture, which recently acquired major retailers Levin Furniture and Wolf Furniture, has sold its mattress manufacturing company, Comfort Mattress, to Connecticut-based Blue Bell Mattress.
The acquisition extends Blue Bell’s distribution from its core market in New England and the mid-Atlantic states into the Midwest. The company also will service 176 of Art Van’s retail stores from Pennsylvania to Illinois.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Blue Bell will run its Midwest production from Comfort’s 140,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Roseville, Mich., a move that will boost Blue Bell’s employment to about 250.
“The acquisition gives us a great gateway into the Midwest to help build out our expansion strategy, which has accelerated with this year’s investment by Landon Capital,” said Mark Kolovson, CEO of Blue Bell. “The Comfort Mattress facility is a great location for Blue Bell to provide our growing retail partners with quicker delivery of our portfolio of products.”
The newly-acquired factory will be branded Blue Bell Midwest and will manufacture product for Blue Bell’s private label line, as well as King Koil and Natura, Blue Bell’s licensing partners.
“We’re excited about this next step in Blue Bell’s expansion and look forward to the execution of integrating the Michigan factory into the existing operations,” said Chris Sullivan, managing partner of Landon. “Next year will contain further expansion of both the Blue Bell footprint and into new product lines. This acquisition is the first step toward reaching those goals.”
Art Van used the Michigan factory to supply its traditional furniture stores and Art Van PureSleep stores. It will not complement Blue Bell’s two Connecticut factories, which total about 200,000 square feet.