Retas’ winner’s figures show 68% rise, emerging from pandemic with ‘much better balance sheet’
Pre-tax profits at Blue Diamond garden centres rose by 68% in its last financial year – with Covid sales calculated to have generated around £22million of the extra £49m turnover.
Alan Roper, managing director at the group which won the multiple Best Garden Centre Retailer Of Greeting Cards in the 2021 Retas, was very happy with the results, but did warn shareholders “this inflated average spend will deflate in 2022 as people return to their unencumbered routines, such as holidays”.
Blue Diamond Group released its report and accounts for 2021 last week, with the financial headlines showing profit before tax was up 68% to £39.5m on sales up 27% to £255m.
Putting the results into perspective, Alan analysed the like-for-like sales performance of the group without its Wyevale acquisitions: “From 2017 to 2019 average spend grew by approximately 3% a year. The average basket spend was £23.71 in 2017 and by 2019 the figure was £25.80, an increase of 9%. In 2021 the average spend had ballooned to £34.50, an increase of 33.7% over two years.
“This inflated spend was driven by consumers directing disposable income to their homes and gardens because Covid rules were restricting time spent on over activities, such as holidays. The net impact is that Covid probably generated an extra £22m of garden centre turnover in 2021. The year ended with garden centre turnover up by £49m (27%). Without Covid sales probably would have been up around 13%.”
Blue Diamond chairman Simon Burke said it was “an extraordinary result” although still significantly affected by the pandemic in terms of closures, trading and government financial support.
He added: “Although we expect a fall in profit in 2022, we will nevertheless emerge from the pandemic period stronger, more profitable and with a much better balance sheet than we had in 2019.”
He said the market in potential acquisitions has been particularly active in the past nine months, and the company has reviewed numerous centres for sale, but only bought one since the year end, the Blackdown centre near Taunton where a major redevelopment is planned this summer, taking the estate to 40 centres in the Midlands and South, including two in the Channel Islands.
The company resumed its capital investment programme in 2021, with £11.9m deployed mainly across the Wyevale estate to bring store quality up to Blue Diamond standard, and a new central warehouse facility has been established in East Bridgeford which forms the new hub for all shopfloor stock and handles direct import goods from the Far East.
