Newbank Garden Centre has completed the purchase of Trebaron Garden Centre in Newton le Willows.
The family-run company, based in Bury, now has five centres in its group. The Newton Le Willows site joins a centre in Royton, Dobcross, Halifax and Radcliffe.
Jon Bottomley, the commercial director of the company spoke with GCR about the buy.
GCR: Jon, why did you take this opportunity?
Jon: “We were in negotiations for a couple of Wyevale stores. It became clear that we were being used as backup to them for when the phone stopped ringing!” Having close ties with Mike [Withers, former owner of Trebaron Garden Centre] over the years, I approached him to see if a deal would interest him.
“It’s close enough to our other sites and Newbank’s central warehouse to make it manageable for us. It also sits in a fantastic catchment area.
“We have been looking for a fifth Newbank site for a while. Having missed out on a few high profile ones over the last few years, we decided to be proactive in our search.”
GCR: How did you fund the purchase?
JB: “We funded the deal ourselves with retained profits.”
GCR: How will that impact your turnover?
JB: “We are hoping our group Turnover will increase to £14 million. It’s a large site and has unlimited potential.
GCR: Are you keeping the staff?
JB: “Yes we are. We’ll need to give more hours and take more staff on, too.”
GCR: What are you hoping for from this centre?
JB: We’re hoping that we can double the turnover in three years. It would be great for it to be on turnover parity with our Bury flagship store. It’s an ambitious target, but it’s achievable!
