Woodies Owner Grafton Group reports strong performance all round

Woodies owner Grafton Group has reported a strong performance in their first half of the year, with revenue, profit and earnings per share all rising on the back of improving trading conditions. Profit before tax was up more than 280% from 24.5 million in the first six months of 2012 to 68.4 million in the same period this year, the company said in a statement.

The company said the merchanting business in Ireland reported a significant increase in revenue, which rose 5.6% from €114 million in 2013 to €121 million in the first six months of this year. Operating profit advanced “very strongly” from €1.5 million to €6 million and the operating margin increased by 3.3 percentage points to 4.%. The UK merchanting business, which constituted 73% of group revenue, performed strongly due to volume growth in the residential repair, maintenance and improvement market.

“The benefit of restructuring of its Woodies chain completed in the second half of 2012 that involved the consolidation of two stores and the realignment of rents to current open market levels in ten stores enabled the comparative half year loss to be eliminated and the business returned to profitability”, said Grafton.