Bob's Discount Furniture Files To Go Public, Seeks To Double Store Count

Bob’s Discount Furniture filed for an initial public offering, indicating it plans to grow to 500 stores over the next decade.

The furniture retailer, bought by private equity firm Bain Capital in 2014, has 206 stores across 26 states and is looking to more than double that by 2035, according to its Friday IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The Manchester, Connecticut-based company reported growth and success in recent years, even as other retailers struggled, CoStars News reported. Furniture sales shot up in the early years of the pandemic as people adjusted to working from home, but they dwindled in the following years as inflation and interest rates soared and tariffs increased the cost of imports. 

American Signature Furniture, based in Columbus, Ohio, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, citing the housing market decline as one of the factors affecting sales. The chain, which operates more than 120 stores across 17 states, announced this month that it will close dozens of stores and potentially liquidate, CoStar reported.

Conn’s Inc., which relied heavily on consumers financing furniture, appliances and other merchandise, in 2024 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed all of its stores, including 174 Conn’s HomePlus and 380 Badcock Home Furniture stores.

Meanwhile, Bob’s Discount Furniture posted $49.3M in net income in the nine months ending in September 2024, then posted $80.7M for the same period in 2025. Bob’s planned to open 20 new stores last year, including its first stores in Vermont and North Carolina, the latter marking its entry into the Southeast.

Bob’s store count has increased 10% annually since 2020, according to its IPO filing. The chain had 25 stores in 2006, then 54 in 2014, when it was acquired by Boston-based Bain. It hit 104 stores in 2018. 

The company said that to deal with tariffs, it moved production out of China and its primary sourcing markets are now Vietnam and the U.S., according to CoStar. 

After the pandemic-related surge and downturn in the furniture sales market, “Bob’s has emerged stronger” and “continues to show resilience and outperformance compared to the home furnishings industry,” it said in the IPO filing.

Bob’s didn’t report how many shares it plans to sell or the expected price.