TRAILBLAZERS Pandemic bites? L
ast year’s Trailblazers recorded total sales of £15.4bn between 53 companies; this year it’s just under £15.05bn between 52 companies. But that actually understates the true picture. We have lost Chandlers, for instance, which was taken over by Parker Building Supplies in October 2019 and now comes under the umbrella of Independent Builders Merchant Group in our company listing. Two other major names have disappeared from this year’s survey: Ridgeons, which was bought by Huws Gray in October 2018; and Heating Plumbing Supplies (HPS), which has been hived up into UK Plumbing Supplies (formerly Plumbing & Heating Investments). UK Plumbing Supplies also owns GB Willbond, Plumbcity, Plumbstop, Plumbstore, Bathroom Centre, Gas Centre Holdings, Millbrook Distribution & Spares, and Plumbase. Grant & Stone Group now includes RGB, as of March this year and CRS, which it bought in January 2021, although these are listed separately in the League Tables.
New names this year include Browns Builders Merchants, and Turnbull & Co; new in name and size is the former Rembrand Timber, now part of a much bigger concern, National Timber Group.
Overall, the figures suggest that the market was fairly stable in terms of sales during 2019, with growth fuelled by organic growth and branch expansionas much as acquisition. But this may have been the calm before the storm: EH Smith’s report for the year to June 2020, for example, includes the disclosure that sales in the final quarter (April-June 2020) were down 35% year-on-year. It will not be until Trailblazers 2022 is compiled, however, that we will have a clear picture of the real impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
NB. Because Trailblazers uses information in the public domain from Companies House, the financial tables used predate some of the industry’s most recent acquisitions. Similarly, the way the financial formulae in the tables work out percentage changes, some calculations are not available. As ever, different companies have different financial year ends.
SALES GROWTH
This table gives a clearer picture of the sales trend: 34 companies recorded a rise in sales in their latest financial periods, and 15 saw a decline.
Some of the gains were the result of significant acquisitions or corporate reorganisation: UK Plumbing Supplies consolidated its subsidiaries into a single holding company, for example, and Huws Gray recorded the effect of its acquisitions during 2019: Ridgeons, obviously, but also JE Fuller, and KF Supplies. Lords re-structured into a new holding company and benefitted from acquisitions; MKM reported that at 30 September 2019 it had 70 branches, compared to 55 a year earlier (and went on to acquire Brookes Ceramics and Ceramic Planet a month later). In other words, much of the growth implied by the upper part of this table wasn’t organic: companies were investing in acquisitions and expansion to increase their market share. Whether this trend will continue in a post-Brexit, post-pandemic world remains to be seen.
SALES: THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM? 1. Travis Perkins 2. Jewson
3. Wolseley UK
LEAGUE TABLES
£6,195.0m £1,924.3m £1,403.2m
4. Grafton Merchanting GB £932.9m 5. MKM
6. Huws Gray 7. National Timber
£457.7m £378.5m £253.4m
8. UK Plumbing Supplies £173.9m 9. Bradford & Sons 10. Haldane Shiells 11. EH Smith
12. Builder Depot 13. Lawsons
14. Howarth Timber 15. Lords
16. JT Atkinson
17. James Hargreaves 18. Williams
19. Grant & Stone 20. Sydenhams
21.Covers
22. Elliott Bros 23. Joseph Parr 24. James Burrell 25.RGB
26.Parker Building 27.JT Dove
28. Nicholls & Clarke 29. John Nicholls 30. LBS
31.MP Moran 32.C&W Berry
33.MGM Timber
34.Walter Tipper
35. Robert Price & Sons 36. Kellaway
37. Alsford Timber 38. Crossling 39. Turnbull 40. Markovitz 41. AW Lumb 42. Carver
43. Boys & Boden
44.CRS
45. Browns
46. Myers Building Supplies 47. Beesley & Fildes 48. Kent Blaxill
BMJ LEAGUE TABLES SPONSORED BY
49.Beggs & Partners 50. AW Champion 51. Frank Key 52. Beatsons
53. John A Stephens April 2021 A supplement to builders merchants journal
£156.0m £130.6m £119.5m £108.0m £106.3m £100.4m £97.8m £91.1m £90.1m £89.7m £87.6m £82.7m £79.5m £75.1m £72.6m £72.1m £70.7m £69.0m £65.4m £64.3m £60.8m £59.5m £56.4m £55.6m £53.4m £52.9m £49.0m £49.0m £48.6m £47.8m £45.3m £45.0m £41.0m £40.4m £36.2m £35.5m £35.5m £33.8m £32.9m £31.7m £31.0m £30.7m £30.2m £27.9m £26.6m
SALES GROWTH: A RATHER MIXED BAG 1. UK Plumbing Supplies 2. National Timber 3. Huws Gray
4. Bradford & Sons 5. Lords 6. MKM
7. Beesley & Fildes 8. CRS
9. Turnbull
10.MGM Timber 11. James Burrell 12. Markovitz 13. Williams 14. JT Dove
15. Lawsons
16.Myers Building Supplies 17. JT Atkinson 18. Boys & Boden 19. Browns
20. Sydenhams 21. John Nicholls 22. Joseph Parr 23. Carver
24. Elliott Bros 25. Kellaway
26. Grant & Stone
27.Walter Tipper 28. Haldane Shiells 29. James Hargreaves 30. John A Stephens 31. AW Champion
32. Grafton Merchanting GB 33. Builder Depot 34. Frank Key
35. Robert Price & Sons 36. Howarth Timber 37. LBS
38.C&W Berry
39.Parker Building 40. Alsford Timber
41.Covers
42. Nicholls & Clarke 43.RGB
44.MP Moran 45. Jewson
46. AW Lumb 47. Crossling
48. Travis Perkins
49.Beggs & Partners 50.Wolseley UK 51. EH Smith 52. Kent Blaxill 53. Beatsons
184.9% 138% 76.9% 66%
24.9% 16.2% 16.1% 15.5% 15.4% 12.9% 12.5% 12.1% 11.7% 11.3% 9.0% 8.3% 8.1% 8.0% 6.2% 5.4% 4.9% 4.2% 4.0% 3.0% 3.0% 2.0% 2.4% 2.3% 1.6% 1.5% 1.4% 1.3% 1.3% 1.0% 0.2%
-2.0% -0.3% -0.6% -0.8% -1.6% -1.9% -2.3% -2.4% -2.9% -4.0% -4.9% -5.7%
-11.0% -11.5% -15.2% -16.1% -18.8% n/a
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