News roundup--Dwell secures investment, rumours of Express Gifts sale

Furniture retailer/cataloguer Dwell has secured a £5 million investment from private-equity firm Key Capital Partners. KCP will take a minority shareholding in the business as it ramps up its retail presence from 19 to 52 stores by 2014.

Findel is reportedly considering a sale of its Express Gifts business. This is Money (The Mail on Sunday) writes that multititle catalogue group N Brown is “tipped to be in pole position to buy the business, but no formal talks have been held.”

The City is expecting DSG, the owner of Currys and PC World, to announce a 3.5 percent rise in first-quarter sales this week. The rise is largely attributed to a 60-day exclusivity partnership with Apple following the UK launch of the iPad, reports the Telegraph.

IBM has closed the acquisition of business software provider Sterling Commerce. IBM had announced its intention to buy the firm for approximately $1.4 billion (£908 million) in May this year.

HMV’s investors have called on chief executive Simon Fox to sell the company’s Waterstone’s book store business “if a turnaround strategy unveiled in March fails to boost returns by this time in 2011”, writes the Guardian.

Administrators at Bolton-based VBA Ltd, which traded under the brands Sound and Vision, HiFi Bitz and Digital Direct, have agreed to a pre-pack sale of the business and assets to Elitemark, a company run by VBA’s founders. The deal, for £150,000, came about after VBA failed to gain approval from enough of its creditors to complete a Company Voluntary Arrangement, reports the North West Business Desk.