7/10/2013 1:07:00 PM
NEWS BRIEF
Fastenal’s fastener growth
Fastenal Co. reported fastener sales rose 1.9% in the second quarter of 2013, up slightly from the first quarter’s 1.7% gain but lower than the company’s fastener sales growth of 7.8% in 2012.
“The non-fastener business demonstrated greater relative resilience when compared to our fastener business and to the distribution industry in general, due to our strong FAST SolutionsSM (industrial vending) program,” the company stated.
As a percentage of sales, Fastenal’s fastener products increased from 42.9% in the final quarter of 2012 to 43.1% at the end of Q2. Ten years ago fasteners represented about 55% of the company’s overall sales.
Overall, Fastenal’s pace of revenue growth slowed Q2, with sales increasing 5.3% to $847.6 million. During 2012 the company achieved sales gains of 13.3%.
Q2 pre-tax earnings gained 7.5% to $192.4 million, with net earnings up 7.7% to $121 million.
“We lost some traction in the second quarter of 2013,” the company stated. “Our gross profit was strong, but we had anticipated an improvement from the first quarter. The decrease was all related to the transactional gross profit. This was driven by (1) a slip in habits, (2) weakness in our fastener product line, and (3) weakness related to our construction business. The latter two operate with higher gross margins.”
Six-month sales climbed 5.1% to $1.65 billion, helped by higher unit sales offset by “some price deflation” in fasteners. Pre-tax earnings increased 8% to $367.5 million in the first-half of 2013, with net earnings growing 8.3% to $230 million.
During 2013 Fastenal has opened 33 new stores, bringing its overall store count to 2,677 — an increased of 1.2% since December 2012.
New vending machine installs jumped 40%, or 8,454 machines, to 29,549 in the first half of 2013. In the last 12 months Fastenal’s industrial vending program has grown 126.7%.
The company has also increased its workforce 4.1% to 15,760 employees in 2013. ©2013 GlobalFastenerNews.com
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