By Jeffrey Sheban
Two of Ohio’s largest office furniture sellers are joining forces.

T.W. Ruff of Columbus has been acquired by Loth Inc. of Cincinnati, the state’s largest dealer of Steelcase brand merchandise. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed, but the companies will have combined annual sales of $75 million.


Ruff, founded in 1936, has 60 employees and is central Ohio’s only Steelcase dealer. The business is focused on office interiors and commercial furniture, and helping customers design and plan office space.

Privately-held Loth, a 116-year-old firm with 135 workers, is Cincinnati’s largest office-furniture business.

The purchase will end two years of uncertainty for Ruff, acquired in 2012 by Corbin Street Investments, whose principal owner is John Johnson of Westerville. Johnson moved the company from Grandview Heights to temporary offices and laid off 30 workers.

Johnson said he would build a $5 million headquarters and showroom in Westerville, which never happened, and he promised to open Ohio’s first showroom for Workstage, a line of environmentally friendly construction materials and officer interiors by Steelcase, but that didn’t happen either.

“We’re certainly excited about the acquisition,” Loth President Rick Naber said. “We’re furniture people.”

He said the company would hire a general manager for the Columbus market, retain the Ruff sales force, and move the Columbus office to a yet-to-be-determined location.

The acquisition “gives us the opportunity to grow regionally, and where could you better grow than the state capital of your home state?” Naber said.

jsheban@dispatch.com