Gardners reports turnover up nearly 10%

Gardners boosted turnover by 9.7% last year and has revealed it plans to expand in the near future.

The wholesaler’s annual results to the year ending 28th February 2014 were filed on Companies House this morning (23rd October) and revealed that turnover was up by 9.7% to £208.9m, up from £190.4m the year before. 

The Eastbourne-based company’s gross profit also increased by 3.2% to £32.8m, but its operating profit was down by 12.3% to £5.2m, which the company attributed to “increased distribution costs associated with the increasing proportion of small parcels now being sent and some one-off costs associated with developing international operations.”

The report added: “The directors are happy with the company’s increase in turnover in a competitive and challenging market and are looking to continue this growth in the coming years both externally through expansion and internally through its fellow subsidiaries.” However no further details were given.

Gardners, which owns online consumer website Hive, has also invested in e-book technologies, infrastructure, equipment and technology in the last year.

“This continued investment build on previous years of significant investments to further strengthen the company’s capabilities,” Gardners said. It added: “The UK market is expected to be challenging in the forthcoming financial year and the directors will be ensuring that all business costs are closely monitored to maximize margins.”

The company’s average number of employees was 699, an increase of 33 on the previous year.