Grafton Group plc (GFTU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Grafton Group plc Full Year Results 202 Live Q&A. I will now hand you over to CEO, Gavin Slark. Please go ahead, sir.

Hi. Good morning, everybody. I hope everybody is well. I'm very conscious. This is a very busy news day outside of our arena. But obviously, many of you will have seen the announcement. Hopefully, some of you will have seen the slide presentation that was on the web earlier on. Before we go into Q&A, really just a very sort of brief headline view of how we saw 2021. Obviously, a very, very strong year in terms of financial performance, really good performance in terms of operating profit and the EPS both showing significant uplifts on the prior year. Balance sheet in incredibly good shape, finishing the year with that GBP 588 million of cash on the balance sheet, which obviously puts us in a very good position for developing the business going forward. Significant proposed increase on the dividend, absolutely in line with that dividend policy that we outlined at the Capital Markets Day in November. And then really that step change in terms of operating margin and return on capital employed with the operating margin being at 12.9% and the return on capital employed being at 19.4%. So financially, we believe a really strong set of results coming out of the business for 2021. Strategically, obviously, completing the divestment of the GB Traditional Merchanting Business just before the end of last year, which is where the cash on the balance sheet came from, giving us a much more focused and streamlined business in the U.K. And then the acquisition of IKH in Finland in July of last year, giving us that new growth platform and everything going well so far in Finland. So overall, we think in terms of 2021, really good performance. We're very, very pleased with it. We do think it's worth bearing in mind that in some of the businesses last year, there were still significant COVID restrictions. And for those of us that are based in England, we -- sometimes it's easy to forget that there were those restrictions in place. So as an example, in our retail business in Ireland last year, during the first 4 months of the year, there was very restricted retail trading, and we certainly benefited from being one of the few retailers that was allowed to open. Conversely, Irish construction in the first quarter of last year was essential construction only, and that's probably a major contributory factor as to why the Irish distribution business has started so positively when comparing like-for-like against last year. But hopefully, most of you -- looking at the names on the screen, I think most of you know the story very well. Most of you know myself and David very well. So probably an appropriate time just to pass it over to questions. And for that, I'll pass you back to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from David O'Brien from Goodbody.

Three, if I could. Just given what you're seeing in the 4 key regions in terms of underlying demand, difficult comparators from 2021 and labor shortages or product shortages. What is the outlook for volumes across the 4 key regions for 2022? And then secondly, look, there's a lot of moving parts but it's a really strong margin performance in 2021. How should we think about that evolving into 2022? And clearly, you're not going to give us a lot on the acquisition pipeline. But just given the macro backdrop. I'm just wondering if you're seeing any movement in terms of vendor expectations on multiples or any real shift in dynamics in the M&A front?

Okay. Thanks, David. Well, what I'll do is I'll pick up on the acquisitions point first, and then I'll let David come in and talk about margins and so forth. I think we were very open at the Capital Markets event that we said deploying the strength of the balance sheet that we now have was going to take us some time, and that we didn't want to rush into anything. We've been working on our pipeline. We've looked at some businesses early this year, 1 or 2 we've decided aren't quite right for us. You'll have seen we've done some small bolt-ons in the first few weeks of this year, which, I appreciate, it's relatively small, about GBP 50 million worth of sales, but we're still very active in that market. We want to make sure that we have the same discipline and the same rigor that we've put into our acquisitions in recent years to make sure that we spend the money wisely. I wouldn't say as we sit here today that we've seen any major movement from November to now in terms of vendors' expectations. As we've said before, many of the businesses that we've been looking at would be privately owned and the decision to sell is often driven by retirement or divorce or something of that nature that sort of triggers a family movement. So I still think looking forward, we feel very positive on the acquisition front. But I would reiterate what we said in November, we're not going to panic into buying anything. We appreciate that financially, we're in a very strong position, but we want to make sure that we spend the money wisely and that we're still only interested in buying good businesses and good businesses in sensible markets with good management teams that we can work with, businesses that fit the financial criteria that we've been very public about in terms of laying out there for acquisitions and businesses that we think have got good growth potential. So very much in the same place as where we were. But absolutely, it's part of our agenda.

Just, David, picking up about the volume dynamic across our 4 geographies. I think the overarching comment that I would say is that actually, from a construction perspective across all the geographies, we believe has a positive outlook for 2022. I think, in particular, for new build construction, and we see that in -- specifically, in Ireland with very strong activity growth that we've got there on new build, both in housebuild and indeed on commercial construction, we see really positive growth happening in Ireland this year. So probably that's the strongest growth as regards to volumes. I think the backdrop for the Netherlands also looks good in terms of new build construction. All the economies, I think that we operate in, see similar characteristics in terms of really good underlying demand for new housebuild. There is a strong underlying demand for construction more generally. And I think we see that facet in the Netherlands as well. If you look at the housing market there, it's -- the characteristics at the moment are very similar to that, which we see in the U.K. and Ireland, which actually from a stock perspective of housing, there's a real shortage of stock in the marketplace. So that bodes well, I think, for new housebuild. So I think we see positive volume growth in the Netherlands. And the same is true in the U.K., and we've seen that in particular on the manufacturing side with the pickup -- strong pickup that we've had in the start of the year on a volume perspective. So we think, again, new housebuild looks good, and looking at the announcements from the housebuilders in terms of their selling rates, that looks quite strong. From an RMI perspective in the U.K., I think our volume view would be sort of flattish. I don't think we're going to see against last year a material increase or decrease one way or the other. So flatten, I think that's I would put the experience that we've had in the since the start of the year, which is, of course, only a very short period, I'd put that consistent with what we've experienced in the market to date.

I think in Ireland, it's quite interesting. If you look at the RMI side, obviously, you've got the prospect of grants coming for deep retrofitting houses to really bring them up to speed in terms of sustainability and energy efficiency. And if you look at that particular area, then that should be a positive as well for the sort of smaller contractor which sort of drift into the RMI sector, and that should be good for the whole of the construction industry across Ireland. So I think across our -- all of our markets, we look reasonably positively at the market outlook for 2022 and beyond.

And then just coming back to your question about how should we think about the margin evolution? And look, we certainly acknowledged last year was a terrific performance from all of our businesses, but we also saw the benefit of the mix of businesses in terms of the relative performance of the higher gross margin businesses. So that 12.9% operating margin, I think on the basis of the portfolio of businesses that we have and how we see that activity normalizing going forward, you're probably looking at a sort of normal range of somewhere in that sort of 10.5% to 11.5% operating margin. And I think one of the drivers of that will be the gross margin dynamic, and we talked about that last year when we were talking about the interim results. The first half of last year, if you recall, the gross margin was 200 basis points above the first half of in 2019. And we were sort of using 2019 as our view of what does normal look like. So the gross margin was 200 basis points higher in the first half. And if you remember, we really carve that out into sort of 4 distinct chunks. And the impact of that mix of businesses that was particularly strong in the first half of the year with the likes of Woodie's really going great guns, and that's a higher gross margin business for the group. That clearly benefited the first half margin. What we also saw, of course, was that in each of our trade distribution businesses, we saw a very positive margin performance because we saw a higher proportion of cash-based higher gross margin customers. So again, that was supportive. And then we also saw the impact of that very significant spike up in inflation, which was, again, positive for us in terms of stock gains. And then finally, there was an element which was about the work which we've been doing in recent years to underpin fundamental gross margin improvements. And we said at that time that we would expect the sort of 150 basis points to dilute as mix normalized as the market normalized as that sharp kickup of inflation flush through the system, and we'd look to be trying to hang on to that sort of extra 50 basis points of kicker that we had from 2019. And I think I don't see at the moment anything that changes that picture. What we saw in the second half of the year was that our gross margin was 80 basis points lower than the first half of 2021. So it was diluting as we expected, as we started to see that increase in trade-based activity less cash-based purchases. So that was down by about 80 basis points. And I would expect that we'll see that similarly replicated in the current year with a further round about 80 basis point decline overall in the group gross margin. So that, I think, will be the sort of facet that's I suppose one of the key elements of why we see that the operating margin diluting down as we go forward.

We will now take our next question from Aynsley Lammin from Investec.

Just a couple for me. I wondered if you could comment a bit more on pricing and kind of product availability issues. I think you've seen some headlines, and it's a bit worse in the U.K. in terms of pricing. So what your current expect patients are there? Is it -- are you still confident to be able to pass that on into the market? And then secondly, just on the manufacturing, I'm curious what's driving that? Again, is that all new housing had a good start to the year seem quite positive on the outlook there? And I just wanted to check CapEx, EUR 75 million, I think you're guiding for this year. Is that a good kind of run rate for the next couple of years to plug into the model?

Okay. Thanks, Angeli. I mean in terms of the manufacturing businesses, there's sort of 2 key factors in there, which is CPI Mortars and of course, StairBox. And StairBox had a tremendous finish to last year, a tremendous whole year last year, strong finish to last year. We actually measure StairBox by volume and by price, as you can imagine. And in the first few weeks of this year, we have made and sold more staircases in StairBox than we sold at the same point last year. Worth remembering, of course, and this is where it's quite a good barometer that StairBox is pretty much exclusively into the RMI market. So more staircases being sold into the RMI market, good margin business. So that -- the RMI market has triggered that growth in StairBox. Now obviously, CPI EuroMix is by far the biggest of our manufacturing businesses. And undoubtedly, in the first few weeks of this year compared to the same period last year, we have seen the major housebuilders in the U.K. do seem to have picked up in terms of number of sites and in terms of the volume, it's actually going through each of the individual sites. And I think it's generally expected this year that the major housebuilders for '22 will get back to the kind of volumes they were showing in 2019. So both of those major manufacturing businesses, CPI EuroMix driven by new build, StairBox driven by RMI, but both have seen positive volume increases in the first few weeks of this year.

And just picking up on the other 2 questions, Angeli. First one on CapEx. So do we expect CapEx to be about GBP 75 million growth going forward. Is that a good number to plug into the model? I think the short answer to that is yes. Just to provide that context for other listeners, the sort of old money depreciation level -- pre-IFRS 16 depreciation level is about GBP 40 million. And I think it is a good proxy to consider for the group that our replacement CapEx spend will tend to run at that pre-IFRS 16 depreciation level. Gross replacement CapEx this year, we think, will be somewhere about GBP 35 million. So the balance of the GBP 40 million is around development spend. Roughly half of that in the current year will be in Selco, new stores, development on the IT system. So that level of GBP 40 million, yes, I think that's sort of a fair number to put in for now in terms of the model. So I think that flushes out in the medium term -- sorry, continues into the medium term. On pricing and product availability, how do we see that at the moment? I think product availability is, in general, much better than it was sort of going back to the middle of last year when we were seeing product shortages. We adopted a deliberate strategy coming into Q4 to make sure that when we entered the new year that actually we were really well placed as regards to product availability. So we made a deliberate investment into stock just to make sure that we could satisfy the demands of our customers. So I think we're likely to see -- they'll probably continue to be that sort of tactical products going on allocation occasionally. I think perhaps where some of the shortages sit in the U.K. anyway is more around some of the heavier side bricks, blocks and roof tile element going into new build. From a Selco perspective, that's a less important product category. Selco roughly sells about -- 30% of its sales are actually in timber. And that has a bearing on what we're seeing as regards to price inflation, and I'll come back to that in a moment. So product availability, I think, seems to be pretty fine. I still think all the businesses are grappling with longer supply chain challenges. If we are sourcing product from the Far East, there's undoubtedly that the sort of global supply chain hasn't settled down yet. I think we were probably all a bit hopeful that we'd get the containers in the right place and we'd start to see a reduction in container pricing, but we certainly haven't seen that yet. So I think that's where we sit as regards to product availability and supply chain. How does that then have a bearing in terms of what we're seeing on inflation? Well, if we look to last year, last year, in the U.K., we saw product price inflation of somewhere around about 13% for our continuing businesses, and the heavy influence there was timber. If we went back to the middle of last year, timber inflation was running at about 50% actually. Now that did start to soften as we went -- as we got towards the end of the year. And I think coming into this year, timber prices have been a little bit softer. But when you stand back from it and look at global demand, I think, once again, the U.S. is taking quite a lot of timber imports. I think that -- certainly, if you talk to timber distributors, they believe that coming in the middle of this year will be some further price increases. I think unfortunately, geopolitical events may well have a bearing on it because certainly, the Baltic states source some element of timber from Russia. So there could be some impact there that's likely to put further pressure on timber pricing. So I think if I was to go back towards the end of last year, our view would have been directionally that inflation was coming down, and we probably would have gone for a number of somewhere between 5% to 10% in the U.K. and Ireland. I think probably, as we sit here today, just given what's happened with events, it's probably a slightly firmer outlook, I think, in terms of product price inflation because lots of our products has some component rather around energy, whether it's energy getting it to us or whether it's sort of the embedded energy in the product. So I think that's where we sit.

We will now take our next question from Will Jones from Redburn.

Three from me, if I could, please, as well. The first, just checking off on the U.K., just like I guess, as volumes have kind of leveled off over the last few quarters. Just check there hasn't been any change of note in the wider competitive environment. The second was around IKH, which looks in the first 6 months of integration at a 14% margin, and it's done very well. And I had a minus 13% or so pre the deal. So perhaps you could just talk us through that. And then a wider strategy for IKH this year with regard to partner stores inside outside of the home country and just where that business is headed. And then the last one, just to cover off on 2022 around just the fixed cost base and thinking, I guess, underlying changes and then whether there are any major headcount requirements at all in any of the businesses?

Okay. I mean in terms of U.K. volumes and how is the competitive market sort of changed the landscape change, the honest answer is not really. Obviously, we made a significant change in our own position in the U.K. market by divesting of that traditional GB business. So when you look at businesses that we divested light build base like Civils & Lintels like PDM and The Timber Group, they were very much into sort of higher volume, heavy-side building materials. Whereas really from a distribution point of view, our primary exposure in the U.K. now is around the RMI market. And I think Selco's got a really good, strong, unique position in the RMI market. And I don't think our competitive landscape has changed significantly in the U.K. compared to the last time we sort of spoke to you guys. On IKH, IKH has been in the business for 6 months. We are very pleased with how that first 6 months has gone -- the first 7 months has gone now. The management team is settling in very, very well. I think we've got a really good CEO. We've got a really good finance director. We've got very, very good people on commercial and business development. I'm very, very comfortable there. The relationships with the partners and the partner stores seem very strong. So later on this year, we will open another one of our own stores in Finland. We've also got more partner stores opening up in the north of the country, and our Estonian partner has also said that they're going to open up another full store as well. So our plan in terms of IKH, we bought it as a growth platform exactly as we did with Isero when we acquired that in 2015. We have got plans for it. We want to make sure that we've got everything right in the business before we put any sort of, if you like, additional pressure on the business in terms of growth, but there may well be opportunities there as we go through later this year in terms of more stores or even a couple of bolt-on acquisitions. But everything that we said about IKH when we acquired it, being a sort of certainly a base platform for getting into the broader Nordics as well as having the opportunity to expand in Finland as well, absolutely holds water and the performance of the business in the sort of second half of last year was bang on where we wanted it to be. In reality, the operating margin was slightly higher than we probably anticipated when we acquired the business. So very happy with how that's gone. We would anticipate at the appropriate moment, as I said earlier, that we will make some more investments into that business, both from an organic point of view with our own stores, looking at partner stores and potential acquisitions as well. But overall, just very, very happy with that acquisition.

And Will, just turning to the fixed cost base in 2022. I mean no profound changes. Naturally, we'll be adding also more Selco stores. So there will be a bit of investment as regards actual numbers of people and property costs, but there isn't anything too profound that I'd bring to light. I mean to give sort of some sense of scale, our fixed costs tend to be around property and in very round terms, our cash cost of property leases was somewhere around about GBP 70 million. If you look at our employment costs, our salary costs, it accounts for roughly 15%, 1-5% of our revenue. And it's really around people, it's around buildings and it's around transport. And if you look at sort of fuel costs, for example, fuel costs are somewhere between 1% to 1.5% of our revenue. So clearly, we've got and are facing the same inflationary pressures as every business is which is around labor costs and is around potential exposure on fuel. You take those together, though, I mean, undoubtedly, we'll look to manage those as we've always done. But within the grand scheme of the sort of the impact on revenue, relatively speaking, it's relatively modest.

We will now take our next question from Florence O'Donoghue from Davy.

Just a couple from me, if that's okay. One is just on Selco very quickly. The planned openings this year in terms of the road to 100 as it were. The second is, I guess, more of a technical one for David. Just wondering what we should be thinking about the net interest charge given the current state of the balance sheet? And also maybe if you could give us an update on what we should be thinking about the tax rate? And then finally, just on Woodie's are supposed the Irish Retail division in terms of the, I guess, the journey towards normalization of profitability, clearly, that was evident in H2 of last year. Just wondering what we should be thinking about this year in terms of how it might shape up, if that's okay.

Okay. Thanks, Florence. I mean in terms of Selco, we've got 72 stores as we sit here today. The journey towards 100 -- again, we articulated at the Capital Markets event, we're about 6 weeks away from opening one in Exeter. After that, we'll be opening up in Cheltenham. As ever, it's all about property, and it's all about making sure the property is right that the real estate transaction is right, getting the stores fitted right. We will do at least 7 between now and the end of next year. So by the end of 2023, we'll be at -- where we will be at, at least 79, maybe 80. And that then gives us 3 years of the plan to open the further 20 stores to get towards the 100. So very much on track. First half of this year is a little bit light in terms of numbers, but that's purely down to property. And we're also being, I would say, very, very careful and very choosy about where we open sites. We are being really, really particular about where we open. And if you look at some of the recent openings that we've done places like Orpington, places like Cannington, places like Rochester and Liverpool, we've opened some very, very strong stores that have performed ahead of where we thought they might perform when we've opened them. So I think that a little bit like the acquisitions, being very choosy about where you open really pays dividends. But certainly, 7 between now and the end of 2023 as a minimum and still very much targeting 100 by the time we get to the end of 2026.

Let me pick up the point around Woodie's and what does normalization look like. If you look at the first half, second half split last year, overall, Woodie's was sort of GBP 285 million in very round terms of revenue, of which about GBP 125 million was in the second half of the year. And I think our view would be that second half revenue figure, if you roughly double that, you're probably not too far out from what our view for the year at this point in time would be for Woodie's somewhere between GBP 240 million, GBP 250 million. In terms of the normalization of operating margin, Woodie's is one of our highest gross margin businesses. So last year, terrific performance. Operating margin of 18% benefited from really good operational performance as well as the benefits of operating leverage that we saw a drop-through in a really significant way. So very strong operating margin performance of 18%. We see in the sort of medium term that Woodie's is more like a 10% operating margin business, I think, in a sort of more normal market. We've always said in the past that a 10% operating margin business in a normal market for a DIY home and garden business would be -- would probably be top of the pile if you looked across the comparators in Europe. So it's still a stretching target. And so we do see that over the next couple of years, we will see the operating margin dilute down from that great performance in '21 back towards that 10% level. On the technical questions, and you had 2, one was around finance charge. Our current view this year, including the IFRS lease interest will be somewhere about GBP 21 million of interest. Now naturally, that will depend upon timing of acquisitions. It will depend upon what happens in terms of interest rates. We've obviously got money in the bank, money in the bank up until relatively recently, didn't earn you anything. It's starting to learn a little bit more now and may earn a little bit even higher amount more quickly than perhaps we'd anticipated. But I think GBP 21 million is a pretty good feel for now. On the tax rate, the tax rate in the current -- sorry, in '21 was 17.2%. So that came in lower than we'd expected, largely driven by the mix of businesses. In the current year, somewhere about 18% in '22. It will start to step up, though, and it will step up in particular because of the increase in the U.K. corporation tax rate from next year, which goes up to 25%, but also from the sort of global BEPS project looking at raising global tax rates then the Irish corporation tax rate for multinational groups may well increase from 12.5% to 15%, Islander a signatory to that. The exact timing of that implementation is still not clear. So I would assume for the purposes of your model, that we move up from about 18% in '22 over a period of time, going up to somewhere around about 22% over the next couple of years, probably a bit more of a step up next year because of that U.K. taxation increase.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from Christen Hjorth from Numis.

Two questions from me. First one, just following up on the product availability price inflation dynamic. I mean last year, obviously, there was the benefit of being able to, I imagine, relatively easily passed on the price increases because it was all about product availability for your customers. As far as availability becomes better, is it potentially going to get a little bit tougher to pass on price increases? The first one. And then the second one, just sort of touching on the performance in Leyland. I mean obviously impacted last year by its Central London exposure, but just how you're seeing things progress over the recent months and what's the outlook for that business over 2022?

Thanks. Yes, I mean just in terms of Leyland, obviously, it's very much driven by traffic in London. You'll remember in 2020, when we have significant closures and disruptions, actually, Leyland SDM was able to trade all the way through and had a really, really strong 2020. And again, certain times of that year, it was a retailer that was able to open when certain others weren't. So we definitely picked up a little bit of business going back in 2020. Might that have hampered the sort of comparisons in 2021 potentially. And also the fact that in Central London, we get quite a lot of sort of pickup trade from sort of busy parts of London, and it's fair to say London hasn't been as busy. Now I've spent quite a bit of time in London since Christmas. London is undoubtedly busier than what it was -- and interestingly, just in terms of anecdotally, feeling London being busier, we've seen a sales improvement in terms of Leyland SDM. So as we sit here today, sort of 7 weeks into the new year, Leyland SDM is almost the pound exactly where we thought it would be in terms of its business plan. So Leyland SDM, I think, will probably have a better year this year than what it had last year based on the availability of customers in London. And also we're starting to now see a little bit more contract business in London going back into hospitality venues, into hotels into restaurants and so forth, but really didn't do much last year at all. So Leyland SDM, we opened a new store in the second half of last year. That's also going very well. It's a very good business. It's -- again, it's another sort of mid-teens margin business for us, very pleased with it, but it has had a stronger start to this year than what it had last year, Christen.

And then just picking up your point about product availability and how does that play into the price inflation dynamic and how easy that may be to pass it on to customers. You're right. I think, again, if we went back to our discussion at the time of the interim results last year, that product availability may have cost us a little bit in terms of volumes that we could sell, but it was more than offset, I think, by the gross margin improvement that we saw. And clearly, if you're talking to your customers and there is a shortage in the market, that is an easier pricing dynamic and an easier conversation to have. So look, I think I wouldn't read too much into it if we see an improvement in product availability. I think it will just mark a return to more normal markets, more normal mix. But when we look at it and we look at the sort of strength in that trade market, we're not unduly concerned about it at the moment.

We will now take our next question from Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt.

I've got a couple. First one is more of a clarification, I think. On the price inflation, did you say 7% last year for the U.K.? And if the answer is yes, what did you see or can you give us an idea of what you saw across the rest of the businesses and whether it differed hugely given your comments around Selco and Timber? And then the second one is on M&A and the balance sheet. I take your points about the pipeline and your kind of unwillingness to rush into things which is probably the right strategy to take. Is there a limit to the amount of cash you let build up on the balance sheet before you start to think about returning it to shareholders by other means?

Yes. Again, I think, Sam, if you go back to the Capital Markets Day, I think we articulated that, that we're very conscious of who the cash belongs to. Our primary objective is to grow and to develop the business, but also there's a number of other factors there. So if you bring into the arena, the thought of things like buybacks and so forth, obviously, it depends on the availability of acquisitions at that particular point. It also depends on the price. And if we think that there is a really good sort of investor value proposition from a share buyback compared to an acquisition, then we would also look at that. I think what's also really -- and don't take this as a sort of a short-term indicator of anything. But share buybacks and acquisitions when your balance sheet is as strong as ours and not necessarily sort of mutually exclusive. We would be able to do a really good raft of acquisitions and maybe still have some returns available for shareholders. So it's something that we're always looking at. We're constantly monitor it. We're constantly looking at what's available. And I believe we'll make the right decisions going forward. But we are always very conscious of who the cash belongs to.

And then just on the price inflation side. No. In the U.K., the average price inflation level that we saw last year was 13%, 1-3% in terms of selling price inflation. That was heavily influenced by that timber component. As I've said, for Selco that accounts for roughly 30% of its sales and timber was by far the highest level of inflation that we saw last year. It was up overall about 50%. And if you were to look at that sort of tiering of -- by product categories, then last year, probably at the lowest end that we saw inflationary-wise was sort of hardware, ironmongery, plumbing and heating supplies. That was coming in at somewhere around about 6%. And it then went up through plastics, which was sort of in that 6% to 10% category. And then you'd be going up to steel where, again, we saw some quite significant price increases, which was sort of in the 15% to 20% category for the full year with, as I say, at the top was timber. So yes, it was biased in Selco's case by virtue of that timber exposure. If, for example, we looked at something like TG Lynes, then their exposure would be to a different product category, it would be based more around steel, more around copper pricing.

Okay. Can you give any indication on the other geographies?

In Ireland, the product price inflation that we saw overall for the year was about 10%, so a little bit less than we saw in the U.K. And if we turn -- if we go to the Netherlands, last year, product price inflation was somewhere about 4% to 5%, which, again, is reflective of the categories that they're exposed to, which similar to hardware. So their inflation level was a little bit less than we saw in the hardware price inflation in the U.K.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from Ami Galla from Citi.

Just one question from me. I was wondering in your Irish market, are you seeing any changes in competitive pressures across the players, especially in the retail segment? And within the sort of basket products that customers are buying in retail, is there any mix shift that you're seeing between the trading that you've seen at the start of the year versus maybe Q4 last year?

Well, in terms of Q4 to Q1, yes, we see a very, very significant shift because actually in Q4, we always have a very significant sale of Christmas-based products. So last year, we'd have sold in excess of EUR 17 million of Christmas product in the space of 4 weeks. So yes, we see a very significant difference in terms of basket. And going into the spring, it's always -- if you go into Woodie's today, I was in Woodie's in Sallynoggin in Dublin earlier this week. It's very much geared up around the early gardening season, which is a very different product mix to what you see in Q4. So yes, Q4 and Q1, very, very different in terms of what you sell. And obviously, as we go through the next few weeks, there's quite a lot of weather dependency in terms of Woodie's because really, as you start to get dryer milder weather, it has a very, very significant impact on the kind of products that are sold going into the early gardening season. So yes, Q4 and Q1 are very, very different in terms of the products that we sell in Woodie's. In terms of the competitive environment, I mean, the only real significant change in terms of retail in Ireland is constantly being aware of what people are doing in terms of online, constantly being aware of what Amazon are doing. But our offer is very good. Our online offer is very strong. And I don't think we've seen a significant change in the competitive environment of retail in Ireland over the past 6 months.

A follow-up to my earlier question then. I mean, I think my broader question was in terms of the sort of -- the mix, the take-up from customers maybe versus last year. Is there a more broader trend towards maybe less premium products within retail as we think about 2020?

I don't think we're seeing a discernible difference. And I think our expectation of, let's say, the first half of this year, maybe some modest reduction in basket size because as Gavin sort of mentioned at the beginning, the lockdown measures, which we saw in Ireland at the start of last year, which left Woodie's as effectively one of the few, if I can describe it as more general retailers open and available for business. So customers last year that were coming in were spending more by way of basket size. So I would expect that what we will see this year in terms of the reduction in revenue in Woodie's will be a combination of fewer transactions and a slightly lower basket size.

There appears to be no further questions. I'd like to turn the conference back to Mr. Slark for any additional or closing remarks.

Brilliant. Thank you. As ever, everyone, we really appreciate your time and your interest in Grafton. We will continue to keep the market as updated as we possibly can as we continue on our journey of growth and our journey of evolution and development. And I just hope everybody stays well, stay safe, and I'm sure we'll speak to you all soon. So thanks for your time, guys.

Thanks.