Grafton Group sales marginally ahead

BUILDERS providers and DIY merchants, Grafton Group, have reported sales were marginally ahead up to the end of October 2010.

For the period to mid-November the group, which is based in Ireland but with significant merchanting interests in Britain market, said turnover came in at €1.7 billion, just ahead of €1.69bn for the same period last year.

That compares with a fall of 1% in its first half year sales, it said.

Even allowing for the dip in sales in the first half Grafton said the trading performance “has made steady progress during the year”, recording reasonably consistent like-for-like sales increases since February 2010.

Sales in the first three months at €444m were behind the outturn for the same period in 2009 when a turnover of €470m was achieved.

In the following two quarters, however, Grafton reported stronger figures than those for the same period in 2009, it said.

Grafton is active in both the British and Irish markets and its management statement covers the period to 17 November.

It owns Woodie’s and Atlantic Homecare, the dominant DIY chains in the Irish market with a total of 41 stores under its ownership.

It said its British merchanting sales for the year to the end of October were up 6%, compared with a 5% hike in the period to the end of June.

Reflecting the turbulence in the Irish building sector, it confirmed its Irish builders merchants business continued to lose sales, but the rate of decline continued to ease as the year progressed.

The group’s DIY retailing operations suffered a fall in sales of 7% in the year to October in line with the performance in the first half of the year.

Sales in manufacturing were down 3% in the year to end October against a fall of 7% in the first half.

Signalling a pick-up in the second half, Grafton said profit in the third quarter in particular “was well ahead of last year and this trend has continued into the fourth quarter”.

In the merchanting area of its operations, a significant improvement in

Grafton’s financial position remains strong with good liquidity and positive cash flows from operations, it said.