Four employees recently retired as part of a restructuring, according to company officials. The brand will be maintained, and all inventory has been relocated to Signes, in the Var region, a move intended to “generate logistical savings.”
Dominique Combeau is well acquainted with Gilles Matrullo, the head of Stove Industry, which is owned by the Belgian PWG group, a company with 2,000 employees and a turnover of €500 million. “We’ve been working together for ten years, supplying Chazelles with pellet stoves,” Matrullo stated. “This allows us to diversify and gain expertise in chimneys and wood-burning stoves in a very complex market,” the executive explained, outlining the rationale for the acquisition.
A Joint Retail Chain
The pellet stove market has experienced a significant downturn in the past two years. Following a strong post-COVID period where households invested heavily, spurred by the attractive MaPrimRénov’ program, “the market, which had reached an exceptional peak,” is now eroding. “Twenty years ago, there were fewer than ten pellet stove producers in France; today, there are a hundred,” Gilles Matrullo noted. Early in the 2000s, 250,000 wood and pellet heating appliances were sold annually. “We reached 400,000 in 2022, before falling back to 260,000 last year.”
Dominique Combeau believes the deal makes strategic sense. “Here’s a solution for the future for us. We were in receivership. It gives the brand a new lease on life. Having a reliable, solid partner will allow us to bounce back.”
merging the two retail networks is expected to position them as a major player in France. Stove Industry currently operates 37 pellet stove stores under its own brand, while Chazelles has twenty. The combined entity, to be rebranded as “Inter Stoves Chazelles,” will boast a network of over fifty stores, signaling a consolidation within the French heating appliance market.
