Coles, Bunnings, Officeworks fly flag for Wesfarmers

Eli Greenblat
April 29, 2014
The Age
The Coles supermarket group helped lift the Wesfarmers result.
Perth-based comglomerate Wesfarmers has once again relied on its Coles supermarket, Bunnings hardware chain and Officeworks stores to do the heavy lifting in terms of sales with the company’s retail focused businesses driving group performance for the third quarter.
Wesfarmers released this morning its third quarter sales results with the mix of trading performance across its divisions mirroring the results recorded during the first half, especially when considering the impacts of an earlier Easter in financial year 2013.
Chief executive Richard Goyder said highlights for the third quarter included the performances of Bunnings and Officeworks, which recorded particularly strong sales growth as well as a solid result by Coles.
For the third quarter Coles recorded total sales growth of 3.6 per cent, with its flagship food and liquor business within the supermarkets group up 3.9 per cent.
Its Bunnings chain posted sales growth of 12.3 per cent, while Officeworks saw sales rise 6.7 per cent.
The performance by its leading merchandise and apparel chains was again hugely divergent. Kmart posted a 0.4 per cent lift in sales while Target, which is going through a restructure to improve its operations, continued to see sales go backwards, this time down 3.6 per cent.
At its Coles supermarkets business headline food and liquor sales hit $6.7 billion, up 3.9 per cent, while for the year sales were up 4.7 per cent to $21.7 billion.
Comparable food and liquor sales were 3.5 per cent better, or 3.8 per cent for the financial year to date.
Outgoing Coles boss Ian McLeod said the like-for-like sales results were pleasing.
”This represents a continuation of Coles strong performance following five years of positive comparable sales growth. Record supermarkert sales per square metre, over 20 million customer transactions a week and continued growth in underlying volumes and basket size were all achieved in the quarter.”
Mr McLeod will step down from his role as boss of Coles in July to take up a new role with Wesfarmers to help guide its future growth plans including potential acquisitions overseas. He will be replaced at Coles by John Durkan who is currently the chief operating officer of the supermarkets group.
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