Sales soar for Sherwin-Williams

Sherwin-Williams, the paint and coatings manufacturer, reported 3Q 2017 consolidated net sales rocketed 37.4% to $4.51 billion.

Sales for the third quarter were boosted by the acquisition of Valspar, completed this past June. Excluding sales from Valspar, Sherwin-Williams sales increased 4.6% in the quarter.

Net sales from Sherwin-Williams stores in United States and Canada open more than 12 calendar months increased 5.2% in the quarter, the Cleveland-based company reported.

Net sales in “The Americas Group” increased 6.5% to $2.54 billion in the quarter, the company reported. The company’s consumer brands group net sales increased 81.6% to $723.3 million in the quarter while the performance coatings group's net sales increased 150.8% to $1.24 billion in the quarter; Valspar sales contributed 148.7% to the group.

"The string of natural disasters impacting Texas, Florida, the Caribbean and Mexico in recent months was unprecedented, and so was the response of the Sherwin-Williams team members in those communities,” John Morikis, chairman, president and CEO of Sherwin-Williams, said in a prepared statement. “Our associates committed countless hours of work toward disaster relief, clean up and customer assistance.”

"The sales momentum we saw across most of our businesses leading up to the storms was encouraging," Morikis said. "Comparable store sales growth in our North American paint stores was running in the high single digits, and the Consumer Brands Group and the Performance Coatings Group were both showing sequential improvement.”

However, Morikis said the natural disasters disproportionately affected profitability in the quarter as lost sales and gross profit could not be offset by reduced operating expenses.