People & Business: DIY tries for a second trick

MERVYN FOGEL, the man who invented DIY warehouses in the UK and made a fortune from Texas Homecare, is trying to repeat the trick with kitchenware and bathroom accessories: he's floating The Home Place on OFEX.

Mr Fogel launched The Home Place two years ago with a store in Hendon, north London, which seeks to harness an American idea of "bed, bath and beyond". In other words the superstore sells everything from towels and curtains to crockery and cutlery.

Mr Fogel sprang to fame in the Seventies when he founded Texas Homecare, one of the first DIY superstore chains. He sold it to Ladbrokes, who in turn sold it on to Sainsbury.

Such retailing innovation runs in the family. Mr Fogel's father Manny Fogel founded the Fads and Home Charm chains, which bought up old-fashioned high-street ironmongers and turned them into DIY stores. Mr Fogel junior is planning to raise pounds 1.5m from the Home Place float, which will value the fledgling group at just over pounds 4m.