Ace Hardware reports record 2Q income

OAK BROOK - Growth from new stores helped drive up Ace Hardware Corp.'s second quarter 2016 income to a record $63.4 million.

The hardware store cooperative reported income for the quarter was up $3.5 million from the same period in 2015. Revenues for the quarter were $1.4 billion, an increase of $8.7 million or 0.6 percent from the second quarter of 2015.

"New store growth was the primary driver of our record revenue," said Ace President and CEO John Venhuizen. "While records are nice, we are not satisfied with the growth as the enterprise and our retailers are working far too hard to settle for modest increases. Given their collective and effective execution year-to-date, I remain optimistic about accelerating both our growth and earnings going forward."

For the first six months of 2016, the 2.4 percent increase in retail same-store-sales reported by the approximately 3,000 Ace retailers who share daily retail sales data was primarily the result of a 2.2 percent increase in average transaction size.

The company added 42 new domestic stores in the second quarter of 2016 and canceled 29 stores, bringing total domestic store count to 4,315 at the end of the second quarter of 2016, an increase of 59 stores from the second quarter of 2015.

Increases in wholesale revenue for the quarter were seen across many departments with outdoor living, paint and lawn and garden showing the largest gains.