Grafton Group, the owner of Woodie's and Chadwicks Group, has commenced a £100m (€117m) share buyback scheme after reporting positive trading during the first quarter.
The Irish-founded company has appointed Goodbody Stockbrokers and Numis Securities Ltd to conduct the programme as agent and principal, respectively, and the buyback will be completed by no later than New Year's Eve.
The ordinary shares in question will be repurchased on the London Stock Exchange and cancelled in line with the group's plans to reduce share capital by as much as 10%, with a maximum of just under 24m shares to be bought back.
Grafton announced last month that it had made a positive start to the year, with revenues up 17.5% on a constant currency basis year-on-year, and its distribution and manufacturing businesses continuing to benefit from "broadly favourable" markets.
Revenues at its Woodies fell during the period relative to the first quarter of 2021 when it saw "exceptional gains" while trading as an essential retailer during the Covid-19 lockdown, and retail revenues were down 28.7% across the group on a currency constant basis.
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Total revenue for the period was £645.3m, up from £561.1m a year prior, and the group said it continued to "actively manage the current inflationary and supply chain backdrop" amid fallout from the war in Ukraine.
"Although there are uncertainties around the future strength of consumer demand, we see no reason to adjust our full year expectations of operating profit (pre-property profit) at this early stage of the year," the group added.
Grafton Group's Irish merchanting operations experienced a 39.6% boost in constant currency revenues, compared to increases of 6.1% and 19.5% in the UK and the Netherlands, respectively.
"The performance of Chadwicks was exceptionally strong even adjusting for building materials price inflation and weaker trading in the same period last year when branches remained open albeit with much of the construction sector not operating due to pandemic restrictions," Grafton Group said in a trading update last month
"Broadly based revenue growth was driven by increased spending on housing [repair, maintenances and improvement] projects, an acceleration in house building and an increase in non-residential private and public sector new build projects."
The company added: "There was a further normalisation of revenue in the Woodie's DIY, Home and Garden business in Ireland as anticipated following exceptional growth in the prior year when the business was classified as an essential retailer and remained open while Ireland was in lockdown.
"A significant proportion of the prior year revenue gains were retained as the business traded well above the pre-pandemic level of 2019."
Grafton Group employs around 8,700 people worldwide, and its brands include Selco Builders Warehouse, Leyland SDM, MacBlair, TG Lynes, EuroMix and StairBox in the UK; Isero and Polvo in the Netherlands; and IKH in Finland.
(Pic: Getty Images/Leon Farrell/RollingNews.ie)
