Our good friend and columnist Lord Kirkham is trying to sell DFS and yesterday’s Sunday Times reported that John Lovering had joined forces with Permira for a £500m bid for the company. I haven’t quite got to the bottom of why buying it for £500m would trigger a big windfall for Kirkham, as that’s pretty much exactly what he paid for it when he took it private in 2004, but there must be an explanation - we’ll try to find out this week.

I’m not quite sure how Lovering has the energy for all these deals - certainly he’s not opting for the quiet life after stepping down from Debs as he’s taken on the chairmanship of Mitchells & Butlers from another Retail Week columnist, Simon Laffin. I’m no expert on pubs but the situation there seems extraordinary, with Laffin having been one of the shortest lived ever chairmen after rebel shareholders forced him out.

But DFS is a good business and has had a good recession. it dominates its category and Kirkham’s mammoth ad spend means its name has to be front of mind whenever anyone things of buying a sofa. As rivals have fallen by the wayside, Kirkham has taken full advantage and DFS dominates the sofa category in the same way Carpetright rules flooring and Dreams does in beds.

The potential problem for any buyer is Kirkham himself, or more precisely what will happen when he decides to retire. Graham is a great character, a larger than life guy with strong views who lives and breathes the business and makes all the big decisions himself - everyone says the famously corny but highly successful adverts are heavily influenced by the man himself.

But he’s not getting any younger, and his right-hand man Jon Massey is no spring chicken either, which means that any buyer will need to think about the succession and who will fill his very big shoes in the future.

That’s not impossible - Dreams has done just fine since Mike Clare stepped down when Exponent bought the company a couple of years ago, and actually his departure has given his successor Nick Worthington a chance to really grow into the role.

So while a DFS without Kirkham might be hard to imagine, what he’s built there could be a great platform for his successor to build on, particularly with the wisdom of Lovering on hand. I hope he doesn’t call it a day for a while though, if only because of the always controversial columns he writes for us.

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