Toolstation backing from Travis Perkins

Toolstation, one of Britain's fastest growing multi-channel businesses, has announced a new partnership with Travis Perkins plc.

Travis Perkins has invested GBP12 million in Toolstation and will be supporting an accelerated roll-out of Toolstation Sales Counters.

In return, the country's leading building supplies business will benefit from access to Toolstation's high-tech business systems for deployment within the Travis Perkins Group, which includes leading brands such as CCF, City Plumbing Supplies and Benchmarx.

Toolstation was started in 2003 by Mark Goddard-Watts, a member of the family that sold Screwfix Direct to the Kingfisher Group in 1999.

In five years, Mark and his team have grown Toolstation into a GBP25 million-plus business, with 12 Sales Counters throughout the UK, these being fully integrated with its website, catalogue and mail order operation.

Travis Perkins' investment and support of the business will see expansion of Toolstation sales counters to 30 by the end of 2008, with the plan to have some 100 outlets operating in 5 years time.

Mark Goddard-Watts, founder and chief executive of Toolstation said, "We had planned to find a strategic partner at this stage of our development to support and continue our growth and we believe that Travis Perkins' culture and ambition perfectly suits our plans".

"With Travis Perkins' support, we look forward to continuing to deliver great value products to an increasing number of customers across the UK".

The unique feature of Toolstation is that all of its business systems were built before the company commenced trading.

This has meant that the business runs efficiently across all channels, keeping costs low so that, in turn, it offers unbeatable prices to its customers.

Ultimately, it is expected that Toolstation will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Travis Perkins, aligned with and complementing its existing businesses.

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