LEAGUE TABLES
Takeovers & inflation confuse the picture
This year’s Trailblazers League Tables are more complicated than ever, thanks to the amount of takeovers and financial restructuring.
Turnover
The level of merger and acquisition activity in the UK builders merchant market over the past couple of years means that this table, while accurate, needs a bit of interpreting. It includes IBMG, for example, but it also includes some companies which are part of that larger concern: Parkers, CRS, RGB and Grant & Stone, for example, still have separate entries at Companies House. In other words there is almost certainly an element of double counting in the table. However, as those brands still operate in their local markets under their own name, we have incuded them to give a clearer picture of how they stack up against everyone else. The same is true for AW Lumb, now part of the growing Lords Group, but included here to show what it has to add to Lords. Paintwell is included for the same reason, to give a clearer benchmarking picture of where the company - owner of Kent Blaxill since October 2022 - fits in. NB: sometimes the formula used in compiling the table can’t cope with negatives, hence the occasional use of n/a.
Turnover Growth
2021 was the year when supply caught up with demand after the disruptions of 2020, and this table shows clearly that the overwhelming majority of merchants saw significant gains in sales. Some of that is of course attributable to price inflation, but there have been solid gains in sales volumes too. Acquisitions too, of course, have played their part, particularly in the position of UK Plumbing Supplies at the top of the tree. Excluding the top five and bottom five in the table to eliminate the outliers, the middle ground shows a very satisfactory average sales gain of 23.2%. The comparable figure for the 2020 edition of Trailblazers was just 7.2%. Enough said.
TURNOVER: TAKEOVERS CONFUSE THE PICTURE
1. Travis Perkins
2. Stark/Saint Gobain 3. Wolseley UK 4. Highbourne
5. Grafton Merchanting GB 6. MKM
7. UK Plumbing Supplies 8. Huws Gray 9. Lords 10. IBMG
11. National Timber Group 12. Bradford & Sons 13. Brewer
14. Haldane Shiells 15. EH Smith 16. Lawsons
17. Howarth Timber Supplies 18. JT Atkinson 19. Williams
20. Builder Depot
21. James Hargreaves 22. Grant & Stone 23. Sydenhams
24. Parker Building Supplies 25. James Burrell 26. Covers 27. J T Dove 28. LBS
29. Elliott Bros 30. Joseph Parr 31. Markovitz
32. MGM Timber 33. John Nicholls 34. MP Moran 35. C&W Berry 36. RGB
37. Turnbull
38. Nicholls & Clarke 39. Walter Tipper 40. Alsford Timber 41. Carver
Source: BMJ analysis of filed company accounts
42. Robert Price & Sons 43. CRS
44. Beesley & Fildes 45. Kellaway
46. Boys & Boden 47. Crossling 48. Browns
49. Robert Pochin
50. Myers Building Supplies 51. Beggs & Partners 52. AW Champion 53. Beatsons 54. Frank Key 55. Kent Blaxill
56. John A Stephens 57. AW Lumb 58. Paintwell
4
£4,586.7m £2,772.5m £1,729.9m £1,252.8m £968.8m £658.4m £616.2m £493.9m £363.3m £328.6m £310.6m £203.9m £195.0m £179.0m £175.3m £156.2m £140.4m £124.4m £118.9m £116.2m £112.3m £109.7m £106.5m £97.5m £91.6m £91.2m £90.0m £88.8m £84.8m £84.3m £83.3m £74.1m £67.4m £65.5m £61.1m £61.0m £59.5m £57.6m £57.1m £56.9m £56.6m £56.0m £54.7m £52.6m £51.8m £50.1m £47.7m £45.3m £45.1m £44.5m £42.8m £40.5m £39.5m £32.7m £29.9m £29.5m £21.9m £16.9m
TRAILBLAZERS
TURNOVER GROWTH: MUST BE A RECORD YEAR
1. UK Plumbing Supplies 2. National Timber Group 3. Lawsons 4. Markovitz 5. Covers 6. Browns 7. MKM
8. Huws Gray 9. C&W Berry
10. Haldane Shiells 11. James Burrell 12. J T Dove 13. Beatsons
14. Robert Price & Sons 15. Myers Building Supplies 16. Turnbull
17. Robert Pochin 18. Carver
19. Bradford & Sons
20. Parker Building Supplies 21. AW Champion 22. LBS 23. CRS
24. Alsford Timber 25. Sydenhams 26. Frank Key 27. Williams 28. Lords
29. Grafton Merchanting GB 30. JT Atkinson
31. James Hargreaves 32. Boys & Boden 33. Beesley & Fildes 34. Elliott Bros
35. Howarth Timber Supplies 36. Stark/Saint Gobain 37. Crossling
38. John A Stephens 39. Joseph Parr 40. EH Smith
41. Builder Depot 42. Brewer
43. Kent Blaxill 44. John Nicholls 45. Walter Tipper 46. Highbourne
47. Nicholls & Clarke 48. MP Moran 49. Kellaway
50. Wolseley UK
51. Beggs & Partners 52. Paintwell
53. Travis Perkins 54. RGB
55. MGM Timber 56. AW Lumb 57. IBMG
58. Grant & Stone
202.4% 49.5% 47.0% 46.8% 44.8% 42.1% 40.0% 38.6% 38.2% 35.3% 34.3% 34.2% 33.4% 33.1% 32.9% 31.8% 31.0% 30.8% 30.7% 30.3% 30.2% 29.6% 28.6% 27.9% 27.9% 27.8% 27.3% 26.3% 26.0% 25.8% 25.6% 25.0% 24.8% 24.8% 23.4% 23.0% 22.7% 22.3% 21.5% 20.8% 20.3% 17.0% 16.2% 15.0% 13.6% 12.0% 10.4% 8.5% 5.3% 4.2% 0.7%
-0.8% -25.5% n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a
A supplement to builders merchants journal April 2023
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