Leadership through acquisition

There can hardly be another sector of UK retailing in which one participant occupies such a dominant position as Wyevale does in garden centre retailing. Even B&Q is challenged in the DIY market by relatively powerful competitors, Focus and Homebase.
Wyevale has no such worries. The Hereford-based company is the market leader with 121 stores and a turnover of £ 166 mio (268 mio euro), according to figures just released for 2001. Its nearest competitor has just 16 outlets.
Wyevale is growing largely by acquisition.
Wyevale has grown consistently over more than 30 years, in particular since flotation as a plc in 1987, which brought the company new financial muscle. The strategy has been to diversify, without losing track of the core live plant offer.
Recent years have seen Wyevale buy out many of its competitors, notably the 39 Country Gardens stores at the end of 2000, which in turn followed the acquisition of Kennedy’s (13 stores) in 1998. Last year saw the acquisition of the two-store Fosters chain. The only other significant multiple operators are Dobbies with 16 garden centres mainly in Scotland, Notcutts with 13 and Hilliers with 11 stores. The figures for the 2001 financial year show the negative impact from the Country Gardens acquisition. The below-average results recorded by these stores resulted in a 1.4 per cent decline in like-for-sales for the group as a whole.
Pondscapes are an attractive feature of every garden centre.
Wyevale pioneered the concept of the garden centre back in 1961. The origins of the company can be traced back to 1932 when founder Harry Williamson started his Hereford seed beds. The opening of the first retail operation was inspired by a trip he made to see garden centres in the United States. Retail sophistication undoubtedly comes in part from chief executive Bob Hewitt, who was in the Sainsbury food business prior to joining Wyevale 13 years ago.
Adaptability is one of the biggest lessons for a chain like Wyevale that has grown in large part by acquisition, since the newly acquired garden centres cannot be changed overnight. So the chain has grown up with quite a varied portfolio of centres. “My ideal garden centre would be 3 250 m2 internal and the same external, with 250 car parking spaces, but in reality we have to work with what we’ve got,” says Mr Hewitt.
One feature of garden centres that is not generally seen in DIY stores is the incorporation of franchise operations. These cover areas such as aquatics, where…