TURNOVER AT builders’ merchants and DIY group Grafton rose by 5.3 per cent to €676 million over the first four months of 2012.

Despite subdued sales in Britain and a difficult environment in Ireland, the owner of the Woodies and Atlantic Homecare DIY chains said operating profit rose in the first four months of the year.

In an interim statement released ahead of its annual general meeting in Dublin yesterday, the group said a decline in new housebuilding and refurbishment had knocked 9 per cent off sales in its Irish builders’ supplies business.

Grafton’s Irish DIY business was down 16 per cent. The bad weather in April hit trade during the month and led to a delay in spending on gardening goods.

Average daily turnover in Grafton’s British builders’ merchants business, which accounted for 74 per cent of group sales, rose by 1.7 per cent during the first four months of 2012.

The group said that overall market conditions in the UK remained stable despite more broadly-based economic weakness.

It said its Selco, Plumbase and specialist merchanting businesses performed strongly.

Grafton said it expected its performance for the full year to be in line with market expectations.

During the shareholders’ meeting, Seamus Maye, whose company, Framus, is taking a competition law action claiming that builders’ suppliers CRH, Kilsaran and former Grafton subsidiary CPI colluded in fixing cement prices, addressed the meeting from the floor.

He argued that the case represented a “potentially lethal threat” to the group.

The board noted his comments.