Bathroom News January 2012 Profit Strategies for the Construction & Energy Industries Newsletter Topics France: Finland: UK: Sweden: Russia: Switzerland: Germany: Germany: Plus For UNIBAL EQT Plans SANITEC Sale WICKES' Like-For-Like Sales Drop AHLSELL Invests In World s Largest Automated Warehouse Facility First K-RAUTA Store In Moscow New Production Site For GEBERIT GROHE Q3 Results HAGEBAU Record Growth Monthly Special: 2011 Bathroom Reports Latin American & Middle East Now Available
1 Happy New Year A very happy New Year from all of us here at BRG! It is that time of year again, when BRG starts its research on the bathroom markets in over 40 countries of the world including Europe, China, America and the Middle East. Thank you in advance for your continued support and trust. First market updates for Europe and North America should be available at the end of March 2012. Source January: BRG 2 Plus For French UNIBAL UNIBAL has announced sales growth in garden and DIY products of 2.7% in the first three quarters of the current year for the French DIY stores. It also identified a decline of 4.2% for the hypermarkets over this same period, while sales fell by 3.1% in the builders merchant segment. Source DIY Global: 8 th December 2011 3 EQT Plans SANITEC Sale Swedish private equity firm EQT has hired UBS to advise on the sale of Finnish toilet and bath maker SANITEC, a deal that could fetch around 1 billion. SANITEC could attract interest from other private equity owned bathroom products groups and trade rivals, including IDEAL STANDARD, GROHE, JACUZZI and Spain s ROCA. Source Reuters: 13 th December 2011 4 WICKES' Like-For-Like Sales Drop 6.8% WICKES has reported a 6.8% decline in like-for-like sales for the past eight weeks, according to a trading update released by parent company TRAVIS PERKINS. This recent decline follows a 1.6% dip in like-for-like sales for 11 months to 26 th November, while kitchen and bathroom sales plummeted 13.3% during the same period, reflecting continued weak consumer confidence for big-ticket items. Turnover for the 47-week period went up 0.6%, with core product sales up 1.6% on a like-for-like basis.
TRAVIS PERKINS reported a 5.5% increase in group turnover, including recent acquisition BSS on a proforma basis. A statement from the company said: "We remain on track to meet our net debt target of 600m at the year end. These trends mean that our outlook for the year as a whole remains unchanged from that stated in our October interim management statement." Source DIY Week: 13 th December 2011 5 AHLSELL Invests In Automated Warehouse Facility AHLSELL has decided to invest in a new facility for the handling of so-called light goods in its central depot in Hallsberg (Sweden). This facility is set to be the world s largest of its kind with more than 100,000 storage places, which will make order handling significantly more effective according to AHLSELL. This facility replaces older and less effective solutions and will be responsible for about 30% of the logistic plant s capacity. The chosen supplier will be VAN DER LANDE INDUSTRIES, which have already delivered similar facilities to AHLSELL s logistics centre in Norway, although of smaller size. The operating start of the facility is planned for Q3 in 2012. Source VSS Forum: 15 th December 2011 6 First K-RAUTA Store In Moscow The first Nordic building and interior decoration concept was welcomed by customers as RAUTAKESKO opened its 14 th and at the same time Russia s largest K-RAUTA in Moscow. K-RAUTA Moscow Varshavskoe is the first K-RAUTA in Moscow. The second department store for building and interior decoration will open in Moscow in spring 2012. According to Mikko Nissinen, RAUTAKESKO s Country Director for Russia, the company already gained valuable experiences from St. Petersburg and cities around Moscow. He sees the store opening in Moscow, Russia s number one metropolis, as a logical next step in the implementation of RAUTAKESKO s expansion strategy in Russia. The new Moscow store is a modern, diversified and service oriented department store for building, renovation and interior decoration needs, with a special emphasis on design services. Abundant interior decoration solutions and displays in the showroom area provide customers with new ideas, facilitate planning and decision making. RAUTAKESKO will open Moscow s second K-RAUTA department store (K-RAUTA Leningradskoe) in spring 2012. In addition, ten more new K-RAUTA stores are
planned to open in 2012-2015. The objective for Russia is to achieve 800 million in net sales by the end of 2015. The capital expenditure will be some 300 million. In addition to the new Moscow department store, RAUTAKESKO currently operates 10 K-RAUTA stores in St. Petersburg and a store in Jaroslavl, Kaluga and Tula. K-RAUTA Varshavskoe is located in southern Moscow, at the crossing of Varshavskoe Shosse and the MKAD ring road. The built-up area of the new store is nearly 16,000 m², of which over 11,000 m² is heated selling area. The store employs more than 230 people the year round. Source RAUTAKESKO: 9 th December 2011 7 New Production Site For GEBERIT GEBERIT set up a new production site in Rapperswil-Jona (Switzerland) for 60 new employees. GEBERIT invested CHF 10 million ( 8.2 million). The new production started operating in November 2011 and is located next to GEBERIT s main production facility. The new production facility will focus on the manufacturing of GEBERIT AQUACLEAN as well as AQUACLEAN toilet seats. Source SBZ: 21 st December 2011 8 GROHE Q3 Results GROHE continues to grow in double digit figures. In the first nine months of 2011 the turnover of the taps and mixers manufacturer increased by 15% compared with the same period of last year to 836 million. The biggest driver for growth was the Asian market with a growth of 106%. This was partly the result of the cooperation with the Chinese market leader JOYOU. In Germany, GROHE grew by 14%. The operative result before interest and tax (EBITDA) grew by 9% to 156 million. Source Sanitär & Heizung: 15 th December 2011 9 HAGEBAU s Record Growth HAGEBAU shows record results for 2011 with regards to the number of newly joined branches as well as to the turnover. The cooperation of building material, wood and tiles specialist retailers and DIY markets in Germany, Austria, Luxemburg and Switzerland increased the turnover according to preliminary calculations by 18.2% to 4.9 billion. The positive development of the HAGEBAU in Germany, which also includes the turnover from Luxemburg and Switzerland, is mainly the result of the specialised merchants. The purchasing turnover in building material, wood and tile specialised
merchants increased by 26.2% to 3.2 billion compared to last year. The building material trade came to an increase of 29.5%, the turnover of HAGEBAU wood trade reached 626 million, Austria inclusive (+19%) and in the tiles trade, turnover increased by 9.7%. As of 31 st December 2011, the Group had 301 associates (2010: 296) with 1,420 (2010: 1,333) outlets, of which 1157 were in Germany, 153 in Austria, 95 in Switzerland and 15 in Luxemburg. Source DIY Online: 3 rd January 2012 10 Bathroom Reports Latin America and Middle East BRG Building Solutions is pleased to announce the release of 12 individual country reports on the leading markets in Latin America and the Middle East for Bathroom Products. These recently released reports (published in December 2011) form an integral part of BRG s continued expansion of its product coverage and they provide an indepth analysis of the Latin America and of the Middle East Bathroom markets as well as an examination of key challenges facing the industry. The product coverage of the studies includes core bathroom product sections (Baths, Shower Trays, Sanitary Ware, Taps and Mixers, Shower Walls, Hydrotherapy Products) for residential and non-residential applications. Base year market data is provided for 2010 (including competitor volume market shares) and forecasts to 2015. The geographical coverage of the programme includes: Latin America - Mexico - Brazil - Argentina - Chile - Colombia Middle East - United Arab Emirates
- Saudi Arabia - Qatar - Oman - Kuwait - Bahrain - Egypt For more detailed information on the developments within the European bathroom product markets and BRG s studies, please contact Mr. David Harrop on dharrop@brggroup.com or alternatively call +44 (0) 208 832 7860. A detailed proposal is available upon request. Source BRG: December 2011