One of Northern Ireland’s largest independent wholesale and retail businesses, Henderson Group, has reported an annual turnover of £331m in 2004, up 16% on the previous year.
The family-owned business, which brought symbol group retailing to Northern Ireland and owns the franchises for Spar and Vivo, comprises five companies.
Henderson Wholesale supplies 500 Spar and Vivo stores in Northern Ireland, and Henderson Retail owns and operates 52 stores. Henderson Foodservice, which supplies restaurants, bars and hotels, became the largest foodservice company in Northern Ireland following the acquisition of Holmes Catering in 2004.
The other two companies are property development firm Henderson Group Property and design and print facility Henderson Print
The Group also revealed it invested £2.8m in company-owned stores and £1.7m was devoted to stores owned by Henderson’s independent retail partners.
This year the company has committed to investing in excess of £11m across its retail property portfolio and independent stores.
In addition it recently announced major investment into larger store formats with Eurospar and Vivoxtra. Henderson believes it can exploit the gap between smaller convenience stores and larger supermarkets.
Following announcement of the results, Henderson Group joint managing director Martin Agnew commented: “Last year was hugely successful for the group, experiencing an impressive level of new business as well as significant like-for-like retail sales and a 16% increase in turnover.
“The progressive nature of the Group, together with its commitment to quality, means this success and expansion is set to continue well into 2005 and beyond.”
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