TRAILBLAZERS
SALES/HEAD: COMPETITIVE 1. AW Lumb
2. Browns 3. HPS
4. EH Smith
5. Wolseley UK 6. James Burrell 7. MKM 8. CRS
9. Williams
10. James Hargreaves
11.Beggs & Partners
12.MGM Timber 13. Builder Depot 14. Joseph Parr 15. Grant & Stone 16. John Nicholls 17. Chandlers
18.Huws Gray
19. Grafton Merchanting GB 20. Travis Perkins
21.Parker Building Supplies 22. Lords 23. Carver
24. John A Stephens 25. Elliott Bros 26. Kellaway 27.C&W Berry 28.JT Dove
29.MP Moran 30. Jewson
31. JT Atkinson
32.Walter Tipper 33. Alsford Timber 34. Markovitz 35. Lawsons
36.Myers Building Supplies 37. Howarth Timber 38.RGB
39. Ridgeons 40. Crossling
41. Haldane Shiells
42.Covers
43. Bradford & Sons 44. Robert Price 45. Sydenhams 46. LBS
47. Kent Blaxill
48. Beesley & Fildes 49. AW Champion 50. Frank Key
51. Nicholls & Clarke 52. Rembrand Timber 53. Beatsons
572.6 428.1 309.9 309.6 308.3 305.2 292.1 281.8 281.7 281.3 269.8 266.8 265.4 263.9 262.2 261.2 260.4 252.6 249.2 246.9 246.5 240.8 238.3 233.8 233.6 231.0 227.3 224.5 222.5 220.5 214.3 213.4 211.8 209.1 206.3 205.1 204.9 204.7 202.0 201.3 199.8 187.6 181.2 179.8 178.2 174.6 165.3 157.3 146.9 137.8 120.6 n/a n/a
PROFIT/HEAD: MIXED BAG 1. AW Lumb
2. Huws Gray 3. MKM
4. Beesley & Fildes 5. James Hargreaves 6. C&W Berry 7. JT Atkinson 8. HPS
9. Grant & Stone
10.Beggs & Partners 11. Lawsons
12.MP Moran
13.Walter Tipper
14.CRS
15. Sydenhams 16. Chandlers 17. Browns
18.MGM Timber 19. Joseph Parr 20. Robert Price 21. Crossling
22.Covers 23. LBS
24.JT Dove 25. Williams
26. Elliott Bros 27.RGB
28. John A Stephens
£35,487 £30,635 £21,793 £20,445 £18,918 £18,439 £17,980 £17,041 £16,961 £16,308 £16,263 £16,019 £14,054 £14,000 £13,518 £12,383 £11,974 £11,490 £11,239 £10,967 £10,714 £10,326 £9,991 £9,905 £9,333 £8,782 £8,698 £8,563
29. Grafton Merchanting GB £8,358 30. John Nicholls 31. Haldane Shiells 32. James Burrell 33. EH Smith 34. Markovitz
£8,212 £8,047 £6,857 £6,815 £5,828
35.Myers Building Supplies £5,750 36. Kent Blaxill
37. Alsford Timber 38. Kellaway 39. Carver
40. Builder Depot 41. AW Champion 42. Lords
43. Frank Key 44. Howarth Timber
45.Parker Building Supplies 46. Ridgeons
47. Travis Perkins 48.Wolseley UK 49. Jewson
50. Nicholls & Clarke 51. Bradford & Sons 52. Rembrand Timber 53. Beatsons
£5,691 £5,558 £5,083 £4,798 £4,512 £4,087 £3,632 £2,493 £2,484 £2,184 £239.8 -£794.8 -£1,082 -£1,393 -£5,104 -£13,779 n/a n/a
April 2020 A supplement to builders merchants journal
BMJ INDEX: STILL HEALTHY 1. C&W Berry
2. CRS 3. MKM
4. AW Lumb 5. Browns
6. Huws Gray 7. JT Atkinson
8. Beggs & Partners 9. Grant & Stone
10.MGM Timber 11. Lords
12. James Hargreaves 13. LBS
14. Beesley & Fildes 15.JT Dove
16. Haldane Shiells
17.Myers Building Supplies 18. Chandlers 19. Joseph Parr 20. Robert Price 21. John Nicholls 22. Sydenhams 23. Lawsons 24. Markovitz 25.RGB
26.Covers
27. James Burrell 28. Kellaway 29. Williams 30. Carver 31.HPS
32.Walter Tipper 33. Howarth Timber 34. Alsford Timber
35. Grafton Merchanting GB 36. Nicholls & Clarke
37.Parker Building Supplies 38. Builder Depot 39. Frank Key
40. AW Champion 41.Wolseley UK 42. EH Smith 43. Ridgeons
44.MP Moran
45. Travis Perkins 46. Jewson
47. Kent Blaxill 48. Crossling
49. John A Stephens 50. Elliott Bros
51. Bradford & Sons 52. Rembrand Timber 53. Beatsons
LEAGUE TABLES Sales/head
1,878 1,713 1,688 1,639 1,355 870 713 703 695 658 535 514 443 427 369 356 347 287 270 251 247 242 203 202 185 154 154 148 145 129 128 123 74 55 49 42 40 40 33 29 14 12 -1 -3 -9
-12 -17 -36
-101 -156 -667 n/a n/a
Andy Roberts, finance director at AW Lumb, explains how the company tops this table: “We don’t have an HR department and we all multi-task where and when required, so there’s no need for the big infrastructure that some other companies have.” It’s worth pointing out also that Lumb has just two depots, a total of 76 staff, and around 45% of its £43.2m sales are direct to site. Compare the two companies closest to it in terms of turnover: Kellaway employs 206 people to achieve sales of £47.6m from 13 sites, and Markowitz employs 192 people to achieve sales of £40.1m from 16 sites. There’s a moral in there somewhere. But overall, there are vast differences: the average across the top 10 companies is £337k, and the average across the bottom 10 is less than half that – just £163k. If you’re achieving sales per head of £250k or more, you’re there or thereabouts in terms of competitiveness.
Profit/head
We haven’t analysed wages as a percentage of turnover, but a quick check shows that for the majority of merchants, the figure seems to fall somewhere between 13% and 18%. And that’s important, given that the merchant industry – along with every other industry on the planet – is facing an uncertain future. In a falling market, most merchants have only two readily available cost controls: the stock level, and the salary bill. So the ratio between the salary bill and the operating profit becomes critical: in good times, it’s easy to overlook uncompetitive profit productivity. But if your closest competitors are generating three times as much profit per head as you are, and their salary bill as a percentage of turnover is lower than yours, and everyone’s sales are falling, where are you going to go?
BMJ Index
The BMJ Index gives a snapshot of companies’ overall competitiveness. It’s calculated by multiplying the three most important trading ratios: sales growth, operating margin, and stockturn. So a company recording 4% year-on-year sales growth, operating margin of 5%, and stockturn of 4.5 times, gets a BMJ Index score of 90. If sales fall year-on-year – even if due to the closure or sale of a loss-making subsidiary – or if the accounts show an operating loss, a negative Index score will result. The clear message from this table is that of the 51 companies for which we can calculate an Index score (Rembrand and Beatsons are excluded because they changed accounting period, so year-on-year sales growth figures are unreliable), 42 showed a positive Index score.
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