French interest in BHT Group

French building materials group Saint Gobain is tipped to boost its Irish presence through a takeover of Tubs and Tiles owner, BHT Group.

KPMG was appointed examiner to the ailing €32m debt-laden BHT business in February, after which a number of potential buyers were speculated upon — including the Dublin-headquartered Grafton Group.

The name of Saint Gobain — which owns a number of Irish-based businesses, including the Northern-based bathroom seller, Bassetts and the plasterboard specialist, Gypsum Industries — cropped up at the weekend.

Grafton has refused to comment on it being linked as a possible bidder for BHT, but if Saint Gobain was to get the business it would considerably up competition in the Irish market, even though the bulk of Grafton’s business is now done in Britain.

At its recent annual results presentation, Grafton’s management suggested that the group wouldn’t be overly interested in buying BHT’s retail operations as many outlets were already located relatively close to those of Woodie’s DIY, Grafton’s main retail interest.

However, it has emerged that Grafton has acquired two of BHT’s Brooks timber merchants outlets in the North.

Although these were outside of BHT’s examinership process, the move would suggest that Grafton is only interested in BHT on a shop-by-shop basis, rather than as a group-wide entity.

That said, however, Grafton remains on the radar as a potential bidder, according to commentators.

“It’s not a surprise that Saint Gobain is one of the five shortlisted for the BHT business which, in our view, is likely to come out of examinership under new ownership and with a reduced network of branches.

“We also believe that Grafton is potentially on the shortlist of bidders,” said Robert Eason of Goodbody Stockbrokers.

Bloxham Stockbrokers added: “Both Saint Gobain and Grafton have the capacity to do the BHT deal. Competition concerns would likely be the key hurdle for any bid from Grafton, given the overlap in the two group’s builders’ merchants businesses.”