Travis Perkins, the parent company of CCF, has revealed revenue rising to £6,741 million during 2018, a growth of 4.8%. Despite turnover growth operating profits came under pressure and fell 1.3%.
Travis Perkins said that both the Contracts businesses, including CCF, and Toolstation delivered exceptional growth, outperforming their respective market sectors. The successful transformation in Plumbing & Heating delivered significant sales growth, winning market share through the branch network, the wholesale business and through the specialist online businesses.
Sales and operating profit improved in the General Merchanting division in the second half of the year (H2), and whilst the UK DIY market was particularly challenging due to both macro and competitive pressures, the Wickes business’ performance also improved in H2.
John Carter, Chief Executive Officer, said: “The Group delivered a solid performance overall in 2018 despite a challenging market backdrop. We took concerted self-help actions during the year, and the benefits of this cost reduction, together with improved trading, drove an improved profit performance in the second half of the year.
In December 2018, we set out our intention to focus on delivering best-in-class service to trade customers and to simplify the Group. To that end, removing the divisional structure within Merchanting will enable an increased focus on customers at a business unit level, speed up decision making and, at the same time, reduce costs.
“In the longer term, the Group remains focused on generating sustainable profitable growth for shareholders and we will achieve this by allocating capital and resources to our most advantaged businesses. We are making good progress on the preparation for the disposal of the Plumbing & Heating division, and are seeing an encouraging improvement in trading and good momentum in Wickes.
“Whilst we remain positive about the long-term outlook for our end markets, we are planning for uncertain market conditions to continue in the near term. The Group remains focused on self-help actions to underpin performance in the near term, whilst continuing to invest for the future.”