Carpetright stays bullish on plans

BRITISH-owned carpet and floor covering retail group Carpetright has said it is not changing its growth plans for the Irish market, even though its first quarter figures, published yesterday, showed a 14.8% year-on-year drop in sales for its combined British and Irish stores.

The company — which was the subject of a failed management buyout bid led by chairman and chief executive, Philip Harris and more recently became an investment vehicle for technology mogul, Bill Gates — currently has 26 stores across the Republic. According to a spokesperson, the plan remains to increase that to 30 stores.

Group sales for the 13 weeks to August 2, decreased by 9.2% compared to the same period last year. Like-for-like store sales were down by 15.4%. There were five store openings and five closures in Britain over the period, but no movement here.

According to the

Carpetright chairman, the demanding first quarter in the British/Irish division was expected, “particularly by comparison to what was our strongest quarter last year and against a background of the lowest levels of consumer confidence...” . He added that the difficult trading environment is likely to continue for its financial year to February.

The company’s first quarter performance in continental Europe — it has operations in Holland, Belgium and Poland — was better, with sales up 8.2% largely helped by the 7.8m acquisition of Dutch floor coverings retailer, Ben de Graaff Tapijt.