Mattress merger would be king-size pain for Sleepy’s

A pair of king-size mattress retailers are looking to make the springs squeak.

Mattress Firm — the No. 1 chain in the US, with more than 1,100 stores — is in talks to acquire Sleep Train, which dominates California, The Post first reported Tuesday night on nypost.com.

Houston-based Mattress Firm, whose shares trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “MFRM,” is looking to acquire privately held Sleep Train in an all-stock deal that could be worth upwards of $200 million, according to sources briefed on the situation.

The negotiations are ongoing, and could still fall apart, sources cautioned. Mattress Firm hasn’t yet finalized an offer for Sleep Train, according to a source.

“There’s no deal on the table,” Jennifer Ritchie, a spokeswoman for Sleep Train, said Tuesday, declining to comment further.

Mattress Firm didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Nevertheless, insiders said Sleep Train, an employee-owned chain of more than 100 stores that ranks itself as the nation’s fourth-largest, could hop into bed with Mattress Firm in the coming weeks.

The roll-up would create the only specialty mattress retailer in the US with a coast-to-coast footprint, increasing its clout with the nation’s dominant manufacturers, led by Tempur Sealy and Serta Simmons, insiders said.

The merger would likewise solidify Mattress Firm’s size advantage over Sleepy’s, the Hicksville, NY, chain that dominates the Northeast.

“This is going to turn up the pressure on Sleepy’s to grow, and you could argue that they haven’t been aggressive enough,” one industry insider said.

Sleepy’s didn’t respond to a request for comment.

With their fortunes closely tied to the sluggish US housing market, mattress retailers have been consolidating what has been a highly fragmented business in recent years.

Indeed, Mattress Firm CEO Steve Stagner has added a few notches to his bed post of late, acquiring a pair of Midwest-based chains in November that operate 44 stores combined.

In May 2012, Mattress Firm bought Mattress Giant, a rival with 180 stores in Texas and Florida.

Even as he digests those deals, Stagner is investing aggressively in advertising and employees, a strategy that lately appears to be paying off. Last month, Mattress Firm’s shares soared after it raised its financial forecast on a 46-percent profit surge.

Sleepy’s, a 55-year-old, family-owned company said to be the country’s No. 2 mattress retailer, currently operates more than 900 stores in 17 states up and down the East Coast from Maine to North Carolina.

Compared with Mattress Firm, Sleepy’s has focused on opening its own stores instead of acquiring smaller chains.

Last June, Sleepy’s announced it was expanding into Chicago with 10 new stores.