BOUCHERVILLE, Quebec -- During the fourth quarter ended on Dec. 31, 2010, Uni-Select doubled its earnings from continuing operations and increased its earnings by more than 9 percent in 2010. Sales reached $309.4 million compared to $315.6 million in 2009. The strength of the Canadian dollar and the sale of some corporate stores in Canada have generated a decline in revenue for the fourth quarter.

However, when excluding these elements, Uni-Select's revenue shows a positive organic growth of 2.6 percent for the fourth quarter of 2010.

The earnings from continuing operations reached $11.8 million or 60 cents per share, compared to $5.3 million or 27 cents per share in 2009. The results from the fourth quarter take into account the non-recurring items of $1 million related to the sale of the operations of the Heavy Duty Group in 2009. The net earnings for this period reached $10.8 million, an increase of 50 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2009.

U.S. sales reached $183.2 million, compared to $189.6 million in 2009. Excluding the fluctuation effect of the exchange rate, the operations generated an organic growth of 3.6 percent during the fourth quarter.

The Canadian operations recorded an organic growth of 1.1 percent during the fourth quarter and totaled $126.2 million, a performance comparable to 2009. It is worth to note that total revenues of the corporation have been impacted by sale of corporate stores concluded during preceding quarters.

"We are happy to report that for two consecutive quarters the U.S. operations have registered an organic growth of more than 3.5 percent. This growth reflects efforts put in place to improve loyalty amongst our wholesalers, level of service offered to our installers, sales to national accounts and the increase of sales via our new distributions channels. We shall pursue continuously these efforts to improve our operations. In the next few weeks, we will gradually start implementation of our operation modules to our integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software," said Richard Roy, president and CEO of Uni-Select.

"We are excited about the potential benefit that will be offered by the acquisition of FinishMaster. Many synergies will arise through the complementarity of the business models, the networks of distribution and clients. On Jan. 11, Uni-Select and FinishMaster combined their respective teams into one single team grouping more than 6,100 employees, 64 warehouses and 424 corporate stores throughout Canada and 35 states of the USA," added Roy.

For the fiscal year ended on Dec. 31, 2010, Uni-Select's sales totaled $1,324 million compared to $1,410 million in 2009. Organic growth was 1.8 percent during the course of the fiscal year even though overall revenue declined. Due to the strength of the Canadian dollar, converting the results of the U.S. operations to Canadian dollars caused the sales to decline by approximately by $90 million. Additionally, the closure of corporate stores during preceding quarters reduced the sales by $21 million.

The adjusted earnings related to the continuing operations reached $50.9 million or $2.58 per share, for a 7 percent increase from $47.7 million or $2.42 per share realized in 2009. Fluctuation in the US currency had an adverse effect of more than $2.8 million or 14 cents per share on the year end results. Excluding these elements, the results for the fiscal year would have been $2.72 per share and would have demonstrated a growth of 12 percent over 2009.

The sales of the U.S. operations totaled $805.4 million compared to $884.2 million in 2009. Excluding the impact from foreign exchange rate fluctuations, the U.S operations generated an organic growth of 2.7 percent during the fiscal year.

The Canadian operations had an organic growth of 0.4 percent. Sales totaled $518.3 million compared to $525.7 million in 2009. This slight decline results exclusively from the sale and the closing of certain corporate stores during the preceding quarters.

The board of directors of Uni-Select Inc. declared a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per common share payable on April 21 to shareholders of record as of March 31.

Unless otherwise indicated, all the amounts listed are in Canadian dollars.