Berkshire unit Cort buys British firm Roomservice

NEW YORK, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Cort, a furniture rental unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N: Quote, Profile, Research) (BRKb.N: Quote, Profile, Research), said on Monday it acquired British furniture designer Roomservice Group for an undisclosed price, in its first non-U.S. acquisition.

The purchase is the latest of a series of expansions by Berkshire in the last month. In late December, Berkshire agreed to pay Chicago's Pritzker family $4.5 billion for industrial conglomerate Marmon Holdings Inc, and about 300 million euros ($446 million) for the NRG NV reinsurance unit of Amsterdam-based ING Groep NV (ING.AS: Quote, Profile, Research) (ING.N: Quote, Profile, Research). Berkshire also created a new bond insurance unit, Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corp.

Created in 1971, Cort said the U.K. business, Roomservice by Cort, will provide furniture rental and design services for residential and commercial properties. Roomservice will continue to provide rental services to multinational corporations. Cort said Roomservice had been its preferred U.K. partner for the last six years.

According to its Web site, Roomservice has at least several dozen large corporate clients, including Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research).

Cort, based in Fairfax, Virginia, became part of Berkshire in 2000. Berkshire is based in Omaha, Nebraska. (1 euro = US$1.4875) (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)