United Merchants (Unimer), the not-for-profit building merchants’ co-operative, is looking to srengthen its relationship with the timber industry after recording a record year of growth and generating £17.5m of added-value income for its members said.
Managing director Howard Grant said that the trading growth reflected the changing face of the building materials market and that heavyside products, such as timber and board, had seen considerable growth.
“Although we would like to think that Unimer’s membership is truly representative of the whole industry, we are looking to further strengthen our relationship with the timber industry,” said Mr Grant. “We have a number of timber merchant companies who are actively involved with Unimer, but would welcome more members from the timber industry.”
Mr Grant also noted that the building materials sector was shifting towards higher transaction values, with Unimer’s figures for the year showing that it processed £768m of sales, up 9.6% on the previous year, and that, while the volume of transactions only increased by 0.8%, the average transaction value grew by 8.8%.
