Dobbies Garden Centres has become Britain’s biggest garden centre operator with the acquisition of 31 sites with 1,400 employees from Wyevale Garden Centres.
The deal, for a rumoured sum of £135m, almost doubles the size of the Dobbies estate to 69 centres with annual sales of more than £300m, and it plans to double in size again over the next three years.
Dobbies, which traces its roots to 1865, was part of Tesco for almost a decade but in 2016 the supermarket sold it to a group of investors led by Midlothian Capital Partners and Hattington Capital in a £217 m deal.
