Godfrey Hirst and Bremworth: what happened to the deal, and what it means for NZ carpet

The short answer: Mohawk Industries, which already owns Godfrey Hirst, will not be buying Bremworth. The Commerce Commission cleared the deal on 30 June 2026. A week later, shareholders holding about 38% of Bremworth said they would vote it down, and the board walked away. Bremworth’s largest shareholder, wool industry figure David Ferrier, then made a partial takeover offer at 90c a share and now controls 55% of the company. New Zealand still has two separately owned major wool carpet makers.

What Mohawk proposed for Bremworth

On 1 October 2025, Bremworth (NZX: BRW) signed a scheme implementation agreement (the contract setting out how the takeover would proceed) with Floorscape Limited, a subsidiary of US-based Mohawk Industries. Mohawk also owns Godfrey Hirst New Zealand, Bremworth’s biggest local competitor in wool carpet.

Shareholders were initially told to expect $1.05–$1.15 a share: 75c a share from Floorscape plus 30–40c a share paid out of Bremworth’s own surplus cash, as reported by The Post. In February 2026, citing tougher trading, Bremworth cut its estimate of the cash payout to 20–30c, bringing the expected total to 95c–$1.05.

A scheme of arrangement (the takeover route Bremworth and Floorscape had agreed on) needs 75% of votes cast in favour, and those votes must also represent more than half of all voting rights. Most coverage at the time focused on the regulator. In the end, shareholder approval was the hurdle that counted.

What the Commerce Commission decided

The Commission spent about eight months on the application. It issued a Statement of Issues in December 2025 and a Statement of Unresolved Issues in April 2026, and its decision date moved several times. On 30 June 2026 it granted clearance.

Its reasoning, from the Commission’s own release:

• It looked at the wholesale supply of soft flooring, not wool carpet on its own. Synthetic and wool carpet are the two main types.
• Godfrey Hirst and Bremworth have mostly competed against each other in wool carpet, because Bremworth stopped supplying synthetic carpet in 2020. Bremworth has since brought back a limited synthetic range.
• In the Commission’s words, “Synthetic carpet has grown in popularity and now accounts for the predominant share” of soft flooring sold here. Most of that synthetic carpet comes from competitors who import it.
• The Commission accepted the deal would remove the competition between the two firms, and that the loss would be sharpest in wool carpet, where they are the largest suppliers. But it concluded the merged business would still be held in check by other suppliers and by customers and retailers switching between carpet types if prices rose.

We got this part wrong in May. We expected clearance, if it came at all, to arrive with conditions attached. There were none. Having found no substantial lessening of competition, the Commission cleared the deal outright.

Why shareholders said no

Clearance was the last regulatory step. That left the shareholder vote, which never actually happened.

• 6 July 2026: David Ferrier and associated shareholders, holding about 19.4% at that point, told the board they intended to vote against the scheme. A second shareholder with about 2.4% did the same that day.
• 7 July 2026: Bremworth told the NZX that shareholders holding about 38% in total (including interests associated with Ferrier and the Timpson, Harrison and Woolf families) had committed to vote against. The board stopped talks with Floorscape about extending the agreement. The scheme could not proceed past its 7 August end date, and the agreement was formally terminated on 7 September after Floorscape’s revised offer failed to win support.

According to reports, the opposing shareholders’ objection wasn’t centred on price. Their argument was that selling to the owner of Godfrey Hirst wasn’t in the long-term interests of the wool industry, its participants or customers. They also said the drawn-out process was holding the company back.

The board saw it differently. It said on the record that the scheme was the best financial outcome for shareholders over three to five years, and that shareholders had been denied the chance to vote with the independent adviser’s report in front of them.

The partial takeover that followed

On paper, Mohawk’s revised offer was the better one. It was 5c higher and covered every share, and Bremworth’s subcommittee called it superior. But by then Ferrier’s company already held 19.73% and had lock-up deeds over roughly another third of Bremworth, so Mohawk’s offer had no realistic chance of succeeding.

Ferrier borrowed about $20 million to fund the bid, according to BusinessDesk. He is also a director and major shareholder of WoolWorks, New Zealand’s remaining wool scouring (washing) business.

Where Bremworth stands now

Results. For the year to 30 June 2026, Bremworth reported revenue of $106.8 million, up 21%. Most of the increase came from Elco Direct, its wool sourcing business. Bremworth made a net loss after tax of $11.4 million. Its normalised loss before interest and tax (which strips out one-off items) narrowed from $15.9 million to $9.4 million. It had $22.0 million of available cash and no borrowings at year end. The annual report says both yarn plants are fully operational and a premium synthetic carpet range has been reintroduced.

Board. Three independent directors resigned on 25 September. David Ferrier and Greg Knowles joined chair Rob Hewett on the board, with Henry Ferrier as alternate director for his father. Shelley Ruha was appointed as an independent director on 19 October 2026, and the board says it plans to add a fifth director.

Next date. The annual meeting is on 19 November 2026. Shareholders will vote on electing Ferrier, Knowles and Ruha. The meeting notice says Ferrier’s focus includes manufacturing, brand development and getting more value from New Zealand strong wool (the coarser wool used in carpet).

None of this makes Bremworth’s position easy. The board’s own September recommendation said trading conditions remain challenging and there is no certainty about future performance.

The wool backdrop

While the takeover fight was running, two other things changed. For anyone actually buying or selling carpet, they arguably matter more.

Strong wool prices rose sharply, then eased. At the end of May, the best crossbred fleece (strong wool from crossbred sheep) passed $7/kg clean (the price per kilo of washed wool) for the first time since around 2011, according to RNZ. By the mid-June national sale, good-style crossbred fleece was averaging $7.40/kg. From July, prices dropped back. At the 21 October national auction, good-style crossbred fleece averaged $6.54/kg. The auction manager described buyers as restrained at that level, with prices held up partly by a shrinking national clip (the total amount of wool shorn).

Wools of New Zealand started selling carpet direct. At the end of September 2026, the grower-owned company relaunched Laneve, an old industry brand, as an online wool carpet service. Customers can browse, order samples, get an indicative supply-and-install quote and book an in-home installer visit. Wools of New Zealand says it remains committed to its retailer network and that Laneve has its own product range, separate from the Wools of New Zealand carpets sold through stores.

What it means

For homeowners buying carpet

Short version: not much has changed on the supply side. Godfrey Hirst and Bremworth are still separate, competing suppliers, and the consolidation risk we wrote about in May didn’t eventuate.

The raw material is another story. Strong wool costs a lot more than it did in 2025, even after coming off its winter high. How much of that has reached retail carpet prices? We haven’t seen reliable data either way, so be wary of anyone who claims to know. Synthetic carpet still makes up most of the market and is largely imported, so it isn’t tied to NZ wool prices in the same way.

If you’re choosing between wool and synthetic, get quotes for both based on the same room measurements, with installation, underlay and removal of old flooring listed separately. There’s now one more way to buy wool carpet (online direct, as well as through stores). Ask each seller for a fully fitted price, then compare like with like.

For installers

Your supply chain hasn’t changed. With both major domestic wool carpet makers still separately owned, the worry about fewer independent manufacturers and thinner technical support has eased, at least for now.

Laneve is the new thing to keep an eye on. (For benchmarks on rates, see how NZ installers price flooring jobs.) It books an in-home installer visit as part of an online sale, but the public coverage we checked doesn’t say how it engages installers or on what terms. If you get approached, treat it like any retailer arrangement. Check the per-m² rate, who wears the cost of measuring or quoting errors, and who carries the warranty.

For retailers

Having two separately owned major wool carpet suppliers means negotiating options haven’t changed. Bremworth, though, now has a new controlling shareholder and a mostly new board, and it has signalled more focus on brand and strong wool. Range, terms or marketing support could shift as that settles. Nothing specific has been announced yet.

Then there’s direct selling. Wools of New Zealand says Laneve’s range is kept separate from what it sells through stores, but a supplier selling straight to homeowners is still new competition for the showroom. How big that channel gets is anyone’s guess at this stage.

For the wool industry

Ferrier’s case for local ownership won out. One of New Zealand’s two major wool carpet makers remains in local hands, controlled by someone whose background is wool processing. Add higher fibre prices, Bremworth’s growing wool sourcing arm and Wools of New Zealand’s move into direct sales, and a pattern shows up. More of the industry is trying to capture the value of strong wool closer to the person buying the carpet.

There’s a catch, and it’s in the Commission’s own finding. Synthetic carpet is the predominant product, and wool carpet has to compete with it on price. So a higher wool price is good news for growers but makes wool carpet harder to sell.

What to watch

• Bremworth’s annual meeting on 19 November 2026, and any strategy statement from the new board
• Whether Mohawk and Godfrey Hirst make any further move. We found no sign of one at the time of writing
• Strong wool prices at the national auctions through the summer shearing season
• How the Laneve service develops, and how it works with installers
• Wool versus synthetic carpet pricing in quotes over the next year

If you have direct experience of how this has played out on the supply, retail or installation side, tell us through our contact form. We protect sources who ask for anonymity.