Upholstered furniture retailer DFS has announced plans to appoint a new chief financial officer (CFO) following a year of solid growth.

Dominique Highfield, who currently serves as CFO at flower delivery service Bloom & Wild, will join DFS permanently in May.

She will take over from interim CFO Marie Wall, who will leave the company as part of a transition plan being drawn up by the DFS board. The firm said this will “ensure a smooth and effective handover”.

According to DFS, Highfield’s current experience as CFO at Bloom & Wild - coupled with her financial and operational experience gained from working at companies like Purplebricks, Pentland and Amazon - will enable her to support “sustainable growth”.

Her impending appointment comes as the firm announces that underlying pre-tax profits in the six weeks to the end of December grew to around £30-£31 million, an increase of roughly £13-£14 million compared to 2024.

Group order intake during the period jumped by 2.3 per cent, with both DFS and Sofology brands achieving growth.

Tim Stacey, group chief executive at DFS, attributed this growth to “scale and vertical integration”, the use of data, and a “unique culture” that exists internally at the furniture retailer.

Stacey said these things are helping the company strengthen its customer value proposition and subsequently increase orders even though the rest of the industry is battling with a “broadly flat market”.

He added: “We have continued to make good progress growing our gross margins and managing our cost base effectively. As a result, I am pleased to report an upgrade to our full year profit expectations following a strong first half performance.

“I am confident that the business is well positioned to continue delivering against our strategy and we remain committed to achieving our medium term targets of £1.4 billion revenue and eight per cent PBT margin and delivering attractive returns for our shareholders as the market recovers.”

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