NEWSROUND Lords Group Trading floats on AIM
Trading opened on July 20 of shares in the independent builders merchant group Lords Group Trading plc, which has listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.
The company wishes to raise new equity to provide more flexibility and funds to continue its current and future growth ambitions, both organic and inorganic. The funding will also allow current Lords shareholders to sell a proportion of their current shareholding. The share placing was oversubscribed, having received strong support from institutional investors and will raise a total of £52.0 million,
Construction
with the Group valued at around £150 million on Admission. On Admission, the Company had 157,503,947 Ordinary Shares in issue and a free float of approximately 34.5 per cent. Shanker Patel, Chief Executive Officer of Lords Group Trading plc, said: “We are delighted to have joined the AIM market. The entire team has worked hard to establish Lords’ position as a leading distributor in the UK building materials market, and it is this ability and ambition that will allow us to capitalise on the significant opportunities ahead. The RMI market in particular has huge
potential. We look forward to continuing to grow our business as a publicly quoted company.” Lords was established over 35 years ago as a family business with its first retail unit in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. Since then, the Company has grown to a business operating from 33 sites with a combined turnover in excess of £288 million. The Group aims to become a £500 million turnover building materials distributor group by 2024 as it grows its national presence.
In the last five years, the group has expanded via the acquisition of a number of merchant businesses
including: George Lines, Hussey & Saunders, Hevey Building Supplies, Kings Langley Builders Supplies, MAP and, in April, Condell Ltd. This latest acquisition took the group south of the River Thames for the first time and the branch is now trading under the Lords banner.
recovery continues Graham sells to Wolseley and UK Plumbing Supplies
The recovery in UK construction output gained further momentum during June, according to the latest PMI®
data.
Overall construction activity expanded at the fastest pace since June 1997, supported by another sharp rise in new orders. Suppliers’ delivery times lengthened to the greatest extent since the survey began just over 24 years ago, surpassing the previous record seen in April 2020. Severe shortages of construction products and materials resulted in a survey record rise in purchasing prices in June. At 66.3 in June, up from 64.2 in May, the seasonally adjusted IHS Markit/CIPS UK Construction PMI® Total Activity Index signalled the strongest rate of output growth for exactly 24 years. Sharp increases in business activity were seen across all three main areas of the construction sector monitored by the survey.
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The UK plumbers merchant market has further contracted with the sale of Saint Gobain’s Graham Plumbers Merchant business to competitors Wolseley and UK Plumbing Supplies. The latter will take the majority of the Graham branches, as well as the Graham brand name and website; a smaller number of branches will go to Wolseley. The transactions are said to be part of Saint-Gobain’s policy of concentrating on
those businesses whereit sees most growth and profitability potential.
The Graham Plumbers Merchant generated a turnover of about €260 million last year. It has been part of the Saint Gobain portfolio since the early 2000s. It started out in 1936 in Glasgow under the name Thomas Graham & Son and today has about 130 outlets and 840 employees. The sale of Wolseley UK was completed in January by parent
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company Ferguson, to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, the US private equity firm.
Travis Perkins reports “excellent performance” in first half
The recovery in the repair, main- tenance and improvement sector has helped Travis Perkins to half- year revenues that were 14.5% ahead of 2019 and up by 44.1% on a like-for-like basis with the continuing businesses. The group’s results for the six months to June 30 2021 show group revenue of £2.29bn, up 37% on the first six months of 2020, when the pandemic and first UK-wide lockdown closed most branches for a period. Overall Merchanting revenue was £1,905m, leading to an ad-
justed operating profit of £156m, up 11% versus 2019 and an operating margin of 8.2%. In May, the Plumbing & Heat- ing business was sold to H.I.G. Capital, for £325m with the deal expected to complete in Q3. Nick Roberts, Chief Executive
Officer, said: "I am delighted with our performance during the first half of 2021. To have executed our planned strategic portfolio actions whilst delivering an excel- lent trading performance in ever changing market conditions is tes- tament to the hard work and of
our colleagues across the Group. “I am particularly pleased with the agility teams have shown in responding to rapidly evolving market dynamics whilst always maintaining focus on customer, colleague and supplier safety. “Toolstation UK is on course to deliver another excellent year of growth and our European rollout continues to gather pace. “I am cautiously optimistic
around the outlook for the busi- ness and confident in our ability to make further progress in the second half of the year."
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net August 2021
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