Recent fine weather has brought a posy of potential punts from the garden centre market, courtesy of broker Seymour Pierce.

Analyst Rhys Williams noted a further sales slowdown at Blooms of Bressingham, ‘impacted by the long cold spring’, with like-for-like figures for the 22 weeks to the start of July withering 1.9 per cent.

However, only four of Blooms’ ten garden centres were counted in these figures due to refurbishments and redevelopment as well as acquisitions, and total sales actually grew 16.6 per cent. Accordingly, Blooms is a ‘quality play’, in a sector offering long-term growth prospects and Williams reckons the shares should ‘outperform’.

Richard ‘Ratty’ Ratner’s outperform pick is Dobbies Garden Centres, which recently acquired Grovelands Garden Centre near Reading for £5.05 million in cash and a further £0.3m in respect of working capital and cash. Grovelands looks a good fit for Dobbies, insists Ratner, who forecasts pre-tax profits of £5.3 million next year rising to £6.05 million the following. Adding allure to profits growth is the prospect of a bid from Scottish retail entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter, which Ratner believes will be forthcoming at 1200p a share.

Elsewhere, analyst Derek Brown has downgraded retail solutions provider Torex Retail from buy to hold following the ‘expensive acquisition’ of Retail J for £50 million. He sees the deal as likely dilutive to earnings and also points to possible cannibalization
of sales.