OAK BROOK, Ill. — Ace Hardware Corporation, the largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative, recently reported total revenues of $1.13 billion for the third quarter of 2014, an increase of $94.6 million or 9.1 percent, from Q3 2013. Net income was $37.3 million for this past quarter, an 8.4 percent increase from Q3 2013.
“My sincere thanks and congratulations to our retailers, their associates and the entire Ace team for a third consecutive quarter of record performance,” said John Venhuizen, Ace president and chief executive officer. “I’m delighted to report that our accrued patronage distribution is up 48 percent versus last year and through just nine months, already exceeds last year’s total dividend by $22 million.”
“The company’s growth continues to be broad, with more than half of the 23 merchandising categories realizing double-digit growth for the year,” continued Venhuizen. “Our top and bottom line performance for the entire year has been largely driven by wholesale efficiency, retail growth from our outstanding owners and a surge of 152 new domestic stores – more than half of which were competitor conversions.”
The approximately 3,000 Ace retailers who share daily retail POS data enjoyed a strong quarter as well, with increased customer count and average transaction size which contributed to a 3.7 percent same-store-sales increase. For the first nine months of 2014, same-store-sales at these stores were up 4.1 percent.
Consolidated revenues for the three months ended September 27, 2014 totaled $1.13 billion. Total wholesale revenues were $1.07 billion, an increase of 9.6 percent, as compared to the prior year third quarter.
Wholesale merchandise revenues to comparable stores increased $17.4 million in the third quarter of 2014. Wholesale merchandise revenues to new domestic stores activated in the 2013 and 2014 fiscal year periods contributed $43.2 million in incremental revenues during the quarter, while wholesale merchandise revenues decreased $8.6 million due to stores that cancelled their membership in 2013 and 2014. Wholesale revenues from the company’s new Ace Wholesale Holdings subsidiary contributed $44.6 million of the increase.
Retail revenues from Ace Retail Holdings were $55.1 million in the third quarter of 2014, an increase of 1.1 percent from Q3 2013.
Ace added 48 new stores and cancelled 22 stores in the third quarter of 2014 for a net increase in store count of 26. This brought the company’s total global store count to 4,903 at the end of the third quarter of 2014, an increase of 138 stores from the third quarter of 2013.
Wholesale gross profit for the three months ended Sept. 27 was $138.9 million, an increase of $14.1 million from Q3 2013.
Retail gross profit for the third quarter was $25.6 million, an increase of $1.6 million from Q3 2013.
For more information on Ace, visit www.acehardware.com.
