Enters into agreement with Home Consortium.
Bunnings has entered into an agreement with Home Consortium for seven freehold Masters sites. There are six freehold trading locations and two freehold development sites covered by the Bunnings/Home Consortium agreement.
In relation to the six freehold trading locations, Bunnings will enter into new leases directly with Home Consortium. Work to reformat these locations is expected to take up to five months from the date of completion, at which time the stores will then open as Bunnings Warehouses.
The freehold development sites require a normal development planning and approval process before a Bunnings Warehouse could then be constructed and opened. If all approvals are successfully obtained, Bunnings will enter into new leases directly with Home Consortium for these two sites.
In addition to the freehold locations, Bunnings and Home Consortium have agreed to jointly engage with the landlords of seven leased trading locations to establish new leasehold arrangements and reformat these sites into Bunnings Warehouses.
Bunnings CEO, John Gillam said, “Consistent with what we have said publicly since February, we identified specific sites of interest if the Masters home improvement business was closed. The 15 sites covered by this agreement is a small proportion of the overall 97 locations that were offered, and they are high quality and a good fit with our existing store portfolio and pipelines. 11 of the 15 locations will be replacement stores and provide us with an opportunity to improve our offer in these areas. We are also pleased to bring the Bunnings offer to four new locations.”