United Carpets on a roll
UNITED Carpets has seen profits rise as consumers take advantage of its value for money offering.
The Rotherham-based group, which is the third largest retail carpet and flooring specialist in the UK, today reported a 10.2% increase in pre-tax profits for the six months ended September 30 to £702,000.
Like-for-like sales rose by 2.5% while network sales increased by 11.8% to £34.5m for the period.
Paul Eyre, United’s chief executive, said that after a relatively slow start to the year the second quarter over the summer was very positive.
“Our focus on countering consumer caution by delivering excellent value for money has been effective,” he added.
“Equally pleasing has been the successful conversion of a significant number of corporate stores to franchisees so that today we have 10 corporate stores compared to 23 at the outset of the financial year.”
He said as a result of the good performance the board was re-instating the interim dividend at 0.25p per share.
Within the like-for-like sales core floor covering achieved a 1.6% increase while beds rose by 11.2%.
The majority of group revenues are derived from the sale of floor coverings, predominantly carpet, laminate and vinyl flooring through franchised stores and the group’s own corporate stores.
In 2008, the company expanded rapidly adding 15 new stores many of which opened as corporate stores as there was no suitable franchisee available at the time.
A key focus has been to franchise the majority of its corporate stores and to date nine stores have been franchised and three converted back into corporate stores.
Since the period end, United has franchised a further eight corporate stores and opened a new one in Peterborough give it a total of 72 franchised stores.
