Expanding Pavers acquires Herring Shoes after earlier Jones Bootmaker buy

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Jul 17, 2018

Footwear business Pavers has bought specialist men’s shoe retailer Herring Shoes for an undisclosed sum in a deal that will help it expand into the premium segment. The company already owns its eponymous chain as well as Jones Bootmaker.

Herring, a Devon-based business, sells shoes from high-end English manufacturers such as Barker, Church's, Cheaney & Loake. It has a store in Devon and an online shop. 

“Herring Shoes is an incredibly successful business and has focused on internet and international sales,” said Pavers managing director Stuart Pavers. Pavers itself is much larger and its most recent accounts showed pre-tax profits of £8.2m on revenues of £83m.

“The [Herring] business has been family owned since 1966 and operates with many of the same values as we do here at Pavers. These similarities made the acquisition incredibly appealing to us. It allowed us to break into new areas of the footwear market while staying true to our own family values and high standards of customer service.”

Pavers will continue to run its new purchase separately with the existing Herring team at the helm and with Adrian Herring as chairman.

“We are passionate about our shoes. We think we offer the finest range of high quality English handmade welted footwear anywhere online, or the high street. But at heart we are still that same family business dedicated to excellent customer service, and of course beautiful shoes,” said Adrian Herring.

Pavers is one of the UK’s leading comfort shoe retailers, with over 115 outlets in the UK and Ireland and a vast selection of comfort shoe brands including Crocs, Gabor, Rieker, Skechers, Tamaris and its own line. It hit the headlines earlier this year when it bought Jones Bootmaker in a pre-pack deal, saying it had  plans to “grow and develop” Jones so it was still a distinct and separate business.