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Builders Merchants
Marshalls also cites wet weather in UK as revenues down 3% in first four months of the year
15 May 2012
Flor O'Donoghue
FACTS: Marshalls, the UK landscaping business, has issued an IMS (May 15th). Revenues in the first four months of the year fell 3% to £106m. The group "remains cautious about the short-term outlook".
ANALYSIS: As with Travis Perkins (TPK), Marshalls has referenced the high levels of rainfall in the UK during April which affected activity (the amount of rain was almost ten times that of April 2011). Hence, Marshalls notes, after a "satisfactory" Q1, there was not the "usual post Easter uplift" in volumes. This was particularly the case for Marshalls' domestic business, with revenues for the first four months of the year down 8%. However, at end-April the domestic installer order book stood at 7.5 weeks, up from 7.1 weeks at the same time last year. This suggests that underlying activity in the UK remains fairly solid. In public sector and commercial, which represents 60% of Marshalls' revenue base, sales were flat in the first four months of the year.
DAVY VIEW: The statement indicates that TPK was by no means the only UK business to have been affected by the bad weather during April.