Bob’s Discount Furniture’s initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 5. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg)
February 5, 2026 4:30 PM, EST
Bob’s Discount Furniture, a home furnishings retailer backed by Bain Capital, rose 0.1% in its trading debut after the company raised $331 million in a U.S. initial public offering.
The company’s shares closed Feb. 5 at $17.02 each, just above its IPO price of $17, and ending its inaugural session with a market value of $2.2 billion based on the outstanding shares. The stock faded into the close, paring a gain of as much as 11%.
Bob’s ranks No. 15 on the Transport Topics sector list of the top manufacturing carriers.
The Manchester, Conn.-based company sold 19.45 million shares in its IPO, which priced at the bottom of a $17-to-$19 range. Bain-advised investment funds and affiliates were expected to own roughly three-quarters of the outstanding common stock following the offering. Bain agreed to acquire the company in late 2013 from Apax Partners and KarpReilly.
Bob’s said in a filing that it plans to the use the IPO proceeds, plus cash on hand, to repay the majority of a $350 million term loan that went toward a $423.3 million pre-IPO dividend to Bain and other shareholders.
“We will be completely debt-free as a public company,” Bob’s CEO William Barton told Bloomberg TV.
Bob’s joins a busy slate of debuts from companies owned by private equity firms. Blackstone Inc.’s compressor maker Copeland has submitted confidential paperwork for a listing, while EQT AB’s student transportation firm First Student has picked banks for a potential IPO, people familiar with the matter have said.
Uncertainty about the resilience of U.S. consumers, the Trump administration’s tariffs and higher interest rates have weighed on IPO activity from consumer-focused companies like retailers and apparel makers.
Expansion Plans
Bob’s has more than 200 stores across 26 states, with plans to grow beyond 500 locations by 2035, according to filings. About 100 new stores will be in the Southeast, a region where the company has a minor presence, Barton said. The company opened six locations in North Carolina last year and four more are planned for 2026. It will also open its first locations in Tennessee and South Carolina by year-end.
As consumers increasingly seek value, Bob’s has seen a growing number of higher-end consumers shopping at its stores. Approximately 27% of the company’s customers have household incomes over $150,000. That’s about 3 percentage points higher than 24 months ago, according to Barton, who calls this a “trade-in effect.”
Founded in 1991, the company’s strategy is to sell furniture below other rival discounters’ prices. Bob’s had adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $164 million, with comparable sales growth of nearly 11% in the nine months ending Sept. 28.
Bob’s generated net income of $80.7 million, with revenue of $1.72 billion over the same period, compared with net income of $49.3 million on revenue of $1.43 billion in the prior-year span, according to its filings.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada and UBS Group AG led the offering. The shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BOBS.
