Insider Media Limited

Builders' merchant Travis Perkins said it was on track to gain £15m of benefits from its 2010 acquisition of BSS. In an interim management statement released this morning, the Northampton-based company said its merchanting turnover was up 10 per cent in the first nine months of the year.

Including income from BSS in 2010 on a proforma basis, group turnover for the nine months to the end of September was up 5.9 per cent. Overall turnover without this proforma adjustment was ahead by 53.4 per cent, said the company.

For the first nine months of 2011 total turnover in Traveis Perkins' merchanting division was up 11.4 per cent, representing an increase in like-for-like turnover per trading day of 9.6 per cent.

Like-for-like turnover per trading day for the third quarter increased by 7.7 per cent.

Total turnover for BSS for the first nine months of 2011 was up by 3.1 per cent.

Travis Perkins said its synergy programme arising from the acquisition of BSS "remains on course" to produce the £15m of benefits for 2011 that it previously targeted.

The overall target from the company is £25m by the end of next year.

The company said this morning: "Whilst the market continues to be in slight decline, our organic development strategy has yielded further gains in like-for-like market share in both our merchanting and retail divisions.

"In addition, we added a further 32 branches before taking account of the sale of 29 Buck and Hickman branches in the third quarter of this year, bringing the total number trading to 1,841."

Its Wickes division produced a 1.2 per cent increase in turnover for the 39 week trading period to 1 October.

However, like-for-like delivered sales were down by 0.5 per cent in the division. Kitchen and bathroom delivered sales were down 12.4 per cent. Travis Perkins said this reflected "continued weakening consumer confidence for major purchases".

In the last three months, net debt has been reduced, said the company. It attributed this to the £27m sale of its Buck and Hickman division.

Geoff Cooper, chief executive, said: "We continue to take market share against a tough market backdrop, confirming the sustainable strength of our organic growth strategy. Our positive merchanting and BSS performance is balancing the effect of a challenging consumer environment for our retail business."