Profits drop at Liverpool builders’ merchants
PROFITS at Liverpool-based builders’ merchants’ Joseph Parr Group dropped by 49% to £775,000 in 2011 despite the firm increasing sales by £500,000 to £36.2m.
The company was set up in 1883 and is one of the larger, independently-owned builders’ merchants in the UK. It currently operates from ten depots, having purchased the former a former Build Center and Plumb Center depot on Stafford Park in Telford earlier this year, which it now runs as part of its Stoke-based subsidiary, W&HS Emery.
It also operates from branches at Bootle, Port Sunlight, Rochdale, Oldham, Stockton-on-Tees, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and from two branches in Scotland. It employs more than 180 people.
The business is majority-owned by Robert Lomas and other members of his family. During the year, its shareholders benefited from an interim dividend of £1m. Its net asset valued also dropped from £10.2m to £9.9m.
A directors’ report accompanying the firm’s accounts said the group expects the trading environment “to remain difficult in 2011 as a result of the continued down turn in the economy and the current state of the housing market.”
Cost reductions have taken place which will allow the group to be in a stronger position to maintain its market share and move forward during the economic recovery,” it said.
