Average daily revenue increased by 3.5pc, while trading profit rose by 3pc to £111m. The Irish businesses, which include 35 branches of MacBlair in the north, contributed 42.5pc of group revenue, slightly down from 44.5pc in 2024.
Chadwicks, which distributes building materials, operates from 64 locations. Woodie’s, a DIY and garden retailer, has 35 stores.
“Woodie’s delivered another year of strong growth, supported by a particularly strong performance in plants and garden products. Growth was driven predominantly by increased transaction volumes, alongside incremental gains in average transaction values,” Grafton said.
“Continued investment in our digital offering, including the successful rollout of a new ERP system in 2025, drove a 30.2pc year-on-year increase in online sales, with online channels representing almost 5pc of total sales for the year.”
Speaking to the Irish Independent, Grafton chief executive Eric Born pointed out that Woodie’s is opening its first new outlet in Ireland for 17 years, at Ennis, Co Clare, and he expects the company’s headcount to increase further.
While he has detected a weakening of consumer sentiment in Ireland, the Grafton boss said this was not a cause for concern, and just requires adjustments to the business. Operating across multiple markets means that changes in one do not have an undue influence on the overall group.
“People ask me are you worried about Ireland because it’s such a big contributor to revenue, but colleagues who have been here longer tell me that after the Celtic Tiger there was no contribution from Ireland and it was all Britain,” he said. “It shows you the benefit of having multiple strong positions across different geographies, and how you smoothen the volatility of cash generation in what is a cyclical market.”
While there was only modest growth in the parts of the construction market served by Chadwicks, it delivered a positive sales performance, particularly in hardware, heating and plumbing.
With its predominantly trade customers, Chadwicks is finding that the smaller-scale developments and medium to large-sized housing schemes that offer it a more attractive customer profile are declining, due to the rise in apartment building and the consequent use of lower-specification materials.
Activity in the commercial construction sector recovered in 2025 after several years of decline, and government-supported investment in infrastructure is growing, the company noted.
“However, the ramp-up in housing supply remains slower than market demand, constrained by external factors including planning delays, challenges in securing utility connections, and ongoing labour shortages,” it said.
Mr Born admitted that the cost of doing business has increased in Ireland, following changes such as pension auto-enrolment and the uplift in the minimum wage, but these have been absorbed rather than passed on to customers in the form of higher prices. Instead, he said, Grafton has sought efficiencies in its own operations.
“In recent years there has been a very low product inflation environment. In fact in some areas we had product deflation. [Prices] have certainly not absorbed cost inflation. We try to minimise the impact by just being very lean and fit.”
Reporting the group’s final results for the year ended 31 December, Grafton said adjusted operating profit was ahead of expectations, increasing by 7.1pc to £190.2m, mostly driven by the full-year contribution of Salvador Escoda in Spain, a company it bought in 2024.
Grafton said positive trading conditions are expected to continue both in Ireland and Spain, but other markets will remain challenging.
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