Home improvement and hardware supplier, Bunnings New Zealand, has reported $899 million of sales for the June 2015 year.
This is record-breaking for this Perth-owned retailer.
Data, however, on its earnings or its bottom line profit for the year to June has been omitted.
Profit last year was $5.85 million from sales of $813 million, a ratio of 0.72 per cent.
The retailer had substantial finance costs of just over $15 million in 2014, reducing its earnings before interest and tax of $20.3 million to $5.8 5 million.
In the 2015 financial year, its sales increased in consumer and commercial areas and across all merchandise categories.
Bunnings had been operating in NZ for 13 years and since that time sales have leapt from $210 million at the end of 2002 to $899 million in 2015.
A highlight of this financial year was the opening of its first multi-level store in Auckland’s New Lynn.
But this is not where Bunnings intends to stop. In line with its growth, the giant hardware chain intends to move into global markets.
According to Bunnings CEO, John Gillam, the company wants to take advantage of the growth potential outside Bunnings markets in Australia and NZ, although it has no immediate plans to act on this intention.
“It’s a matter of getting back to seeing the right returns and to running the business in a way that can be effective in another geography, which is a challenge for Bunnings,” he said.
Gillam confirmed Bunnings policy to prefer Australian made and that the penetration of local products on the hardware chain’s shelves would probably increase as the dollar continued to weaken.
“We’ve got a written policy to prefer Australian made – about 40 per cent of the products on the shelves are grown, produced or manufactured in Australia or NZ. It’s a far higher number than people think,” he said.
