Travis Perkins buys stores from stricken Focus DIY

 

The owner of Wickes has bought 13 stores from the administrators of stricken chain Focus DIY in a deal worth £8.4m.

A Travis Perkins worker using a forklift truck

Travis Perkins: One of largest suppliers to UK's building and construction industry

Travis Perkins will convert the sites to the Wickes format by the end of 2011, bringing the number of outlets in the chain to 216.

Crewe-based Focus formerly owned the Wickes chain but sold it to Travis in 2005 for £950m.

Travis, which is based in Northampton and also owns plumbing supplies chain BSS, is one of the largest suppliers to the UK's building and construction industry with a total network of more than 600 branches.

Wickes said it would take on all the 345 staff at the sites it was acquiring.

Travis Perkins chief executive Geoff Cooper said: 'The acquisition of these 13 stores, cherry-picked from over 100 potential locations, further expands our Wickes business and will help us to continue our gains in like-for-like and total market share.'

Focus, which operated 178 outlets across the UK, fell into administration earlier this month after it was hit by low consumer confidence and a weak housing market, which impacted sales and margins.

The chain has struggled in recent years against tough competition from rivals B&Q and Wickes.

Focus has been trading as normal while administrator Ernst & Young tried to sell the business or its stores in a bid to save 3,920 jobs.

Kingfisher recently bought 31 stores for £23m, which will be rebranded as B&Qs. But the 700 staff at the stores were told they would have to re-apply for their jobs.

Simon Allport, an administrator at Ernst & Young, said he was still in discussions with a number of parties to sell the remaining 134 stores.

He added that the stores have been trading at record levels after offering competitive prices across its ranges. Focus DIY, which was founded in 1997 and bought by private equity firm Cerberus for £1 in 2007, employs 285 people at its head office in Crewe.

It underwent a company voluntary arrangement in 2009 when it sought to reduce its rent burden from landlords and reportedly started fresh negotiations over rent repayments at the start of this year.