The deal will see the Clerkenwell studio of the practice, which was set up 46 years ago by British designer and Habitat founder Terence Conran, become DLR’s first European outpost.
The group now has 40 bases, mainly across the US but also in Dubai and Shanghai as well as its latest outlet in Hong Kong.
Conran’s five partners ― Tim Bowder-Ridger, Katy Clarke, Sebastian Conran, Simon Kincaid and Tina Norden ― will stay on as principals.
They will lead operations in the London and Hong Kong offices, each of which will trade as Conran and Partners, a DLR Group studio.
The practice’s 75 design professionals across London and Hong Kong will each have the opportunity to become DLR Group employee owners through the purchase of stock in the US company.
Bowder-Ridger said the partners had been ‘exploring how to take the practice further through a strategic partnership’.
He added: ‘We consistently found the same tension: growing bigger usually meant growing more corporate and losing the imagination of our boutique culture.
‘DLR Group gave us a clear answer: more design resources, extended reach and the platform to grow without asking us to become something we’re not.’
Norden said the opportunity for staff to become owners of the company was a key factor in the decision.
‘The relationships we formed with DLR Group’s leadership made it clear this was a cultural match,’ she added.
‘Our clients will see the same team, the same studio and the same sophistication of design – with the additional design resources and expertise of DLR Group’s global platform.
‘For our team, this opens new design and career opportunities in building types and geographic markets around the world.’
DLR Group chief executive Steven McKay said Conran and Partners was ‘synonymous with luxury design in Europe and around the world’.
He added: ‘We both share a purposeful belief in the power of design to elevate the human experience.
‘Conran and Partners adds a luxury design studio and a level of craft that immediately elevates our work for clients at the premium end of the market in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the US.’
McKay pledged to grow the London and Hong Kong studios ‘to delight and exceed the expectations of the most sophisticated clients in the world’.
He added: ‘Conran and Partners will remain a distinct luxury boutique design studio within DLR Group. That distinction is precisely the point – and precisely what we intend to invest in.’
Design Museum founder Conran, who died in 2020 aged 88, launched Conran & Partners ― initially known as Conran Roche – with Milton Keynes mastermind Fred Lloyd Roche in 1980.
The company’s latest published accounts show it plunged to a £714,832 pre-tax loss in the year to 30 March 2025, following a £200,989 profit in the prior 12 months.
Conran and Partners’ turnover grew from £6.5 million to £7.5 million over the same timescale.
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