Clennett’s Mitre 10 buys Kemp & Denning trade stores

INDEPENDENT hardware business Clennett’s Mitre 10 has bought the trade division of Kemp & Denning Limited in Southern Tasmania.

Clennett’s Mitre 10 at Kingston will be retained as the region’s centre of operations after the company bought the trade division of Kemp and Denning. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

INDEPENDENT hardware business Clennett’s Mitre 10 has bought the trade division of Kemp & Denning Limited in Southern Tasmania.

It leaves K&D with retail sites in Hobart and at Cambridge amid declining company revenue.

In recent months the company has closed its warehouse in Devonport and sold its Glenorchy site to developer Errol Stewart.

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Clennett’s will take over three of the K&D trade sites – in Glenorchy, Cambridge and Kingston – and continue to serve all K&D trade account holders.

Clennett’s Mitre 10, which has sold timber and building supplies since 1885, presently operates at Mornington, Kingston and Huonville.

The K&D operation at Kingston will be closed with the Clennett’s site in Kingston being retained as the region’s centre of operations.

A number of K&D Trade employees will transfer with the businesses.

Clennett’s Mitre 10 general manager Will Clennett said the venture would deliver benefits to customers in the region and fitted with the company’s vision to expand its trade business.

“We are also committed to working together with K&D management to recognise the significant contribution of the current K&D employees,” he said.

The move to offload trade operations and retain the retail section compares with statements in the report lodged for the 2015-16 financial year.

That report revealed an after tax loss of $558,846 compared with a $242,738 loss the year before.

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The company experienced a 10 per cent fall in revenue from $90.08 million to $81.93 million.

In a director’s report, former chairman Ray Brown said the weight of increased competition had rendered the current business model unsustainable.

“Given the intensity of the retail landscape in particular the board has decided to transform our business so that it is predominantly trade focused. During the transformation to trade, any assets that are not delivering a satisfactory return will be realised and excess capital returned to shareholders.”

Former CEO Nick Fazzolari’s report said fine tuning of the service model had “enabled trade to deliver solid sales results”.

“The Kingston trade operation continues to deliver strong customer engagement and through the strengthened trade administration area we continue to see improvement in sales,” Mr Fazzolari said.

The unlisted public company has 2,683,635 shares which last traded at $3.00 valuing the company at just over $8 million.