Heating and Ventilating

Today Wolseley Plc announced it spent £87m on five acquisitions including London-based electrical wholesaler T&R.
Wolseley, the world's largest specialist trade distributor of plumbing and heating products to professional contractors, says in a full year, the acquisitions will add £110m to total revenue.

On August 24, Wolseley UK acquired T&R Electrical Wholesalers Ltd (T&R). T&R is an electrical wholesaler, serving public and electrical contractors in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors and operates from four sites in West London.

The group said T&R will give its existing electrical distribution brand, Electric Center, additional coverage in an area where it is currently under represented.

In the year ended June 30 2007, T&R had revenue of £9.5m and gross assets of £1.6m at that date.

On August 16, DT Group acquired Proaktiv Bygglogistik i Stockholm AB (PBS). PBS is a building materials company based in Stockholm.

It cost the firm £9m to acquire these two European firms and £78m to acquire three North American firms.

On August 6, Stock Building Supply (Stock) acquired assets of ProDest Building Supply, (ProDest). This construction services business operates from Texas and supplies commercial doors, trim, hardwood, related speciality products and installation services.

On August 13, it acquired Western Air Systems & Controls, Inc. (Western Air). Western Air is the exclusive Trane HVAC distributor for the states of California and Nevada,

On August 27, Ferguson acquired Davidson Pipe Company, Inc. (Davidson). Davidson is a pipes, valves and fittings distributor supplying the New York metropolitan market.

Chip Hornsby, Group Chief Executive of Wolseley said 'I am delighted that we have finally been able to enter the New York industrial and commercial market and complete four further acquisitions towards our target for bolt-ons of £450m for the year to July 31, 2008.'

'They are excellent businesses that broaden our product and geographic coverage and support our strategy of growing the business through acquisition and organic growth,' he added.

Group revenue for the year ended July 31, 2006 was approximately £14.2 billion and operating profit was £882m. Wolseley has 78,000 employees operating in 28 countries.