Headlam, the largest flooring distributor in Europe, has made a third acquisition for the year amid a backdrop of falling like-for-like sales.

It has earlier this month picked up Ashmount Flooring Supplies, a North London wholesaler with a balance sheet value of £1.8 million, expanding its presence in commercial products in an area Headlam has historically had low market share.

It follows the March 2018 acquisitions of CECO (Flooring), based at Carryduff near Belfast, and Dutch wholesaler Dersimo, which it bought for €4.1 million.

Tamworth headquartered Headlam Group said today that six month sales to end June were up 0.6 percent after overseas revenue advanced 6.8 percent.

UK revenue was down 0.5 percent with total group like-for-like trading here down 5.5 percent.

It said if trading conditions do not worsen, it remains confident of delivering previously forecast profits in its traditionally stronger second half.