SIG H2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
March 5, 2025

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the SIG half year results. I will now hand over to Gavin Slark. Gavin, over to you.

Speaker 1

Hi. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our full year results for SIG for the year to December 2024. I think most of you know us pretty well, but just in case any of you don't, I'm Gavin Slark. I'm the CEO, joined today by Ian Ashton, who is our CFO. And really appreciate you all turning out today.

Speaker 1

I know it's a really busy day in the markets as well, so appreciate your time. Our program this morning, again, I think is a well trodden path. I'll give you a very short introduction and overview. I'll then pass you on to Ian, who will take you through the detail of all of the numbers, and then I will come back at the end and give you a brief overview of the business. And that should still leave us plenty of time at the end for some interesting Q and A.

Speaker 1

In terms of 2024, you don't need me to tell you how tough the markets have been out there during the past twelve months. But I think we've delivered a robust performance on the backdrop of those markets. Group revenue down just 4% to 2,600,000,000.0. But as you work your way down what's on that chart there, you'll see some really good performances, in particular from UK roofing and Germany. And I think Germany deserves a particular call out for a really strong performance in actually what was really quite a weak market and outperformed the market by some considerable way.

Speaker 1

We've made sure that as we've gone through the last twelve months that we've maintained a really disciplined approach to both cost and cash management. And you'll get a lot more from that from Ian in just a few moments talking through some of the actions that we've taken on cost savings, the actions that we've taken on restructuring, but you'll see there at a headline level million worth of operating cost reduction prior to inflation. We have continued to invest in the business in a very targeted way, making sure that we continue with our program of modernization, of digitalization, and upgrading the branch network where we feel it's appropriate, and also bringing some specific teams into specific businesses to help us drive higher margin areas like technical insulation. We've also made good progress operationally with some really interesting additions to the management team. We've got a really good new managing director in The UK interiors business that we feel very confident that Howard Lough joining us will enable us to drive that business with some considerable pace as we go through 2025.

Speaker 1

And also, I think we've got the business really well positioned now for the upturn and we believe the market upturn will come. We understand the cyclicality in our marketplace and we understand how important it is to be in the right place to take advantage of that cyclical upturn when the upturn comes. But the underlying demand for construction in all of the markets in which we operate remains very strong. With that for a few moments, I'll pass you over to Ian to take you through the detail of the numbers.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Gavin. Good morning, everybody. Hope you're all well. So, the key financials, in 2024, we made good progress operationally with the financial results very much reflecting the impact of subdued markets as noted by Gavin already. Group sales were down 4% over the prior year on a like for like basis, a resilient result given the market backdrop.

Speaker 2

Encouragingly, the rate of decline moderated notably as the year progressed as I'll discuss in a minute. Gross margin was down by 80 basis points on 2023, primarily from pricing pressures in the current market, as one would expect. The lower sales and gross margin were partially mitigated by very effective management of operating costs and this led to an underlying operating profit of million, which was right in the middle of the range that we guided to back in June of last year. After finance costs, this resulted in underlying loss before tax of million. And I'll look in more detail in a moment at the key elements within all of these numbers.

Speaker 2

Below underlying profit, other items were million for the year, mainly comprising restructuring charges of million, the costs related to our refinancing in October of about million and a non cash impairment of certain assets in our UK Interiors business of million. And I'll expand on the restructuring and the refinancing in a few minutes. Free cash outflow of million as expected was well down on the positive free cash delivered in 2023 and 2022. The lower profit was obviously the main driver along with higher one off cash costs such as those related to the refi. The cash outflow led to an increase in net debt to GBP497 million.

Speaker 2

Leverage has risen as a result of both that and in particular the lower profit. As a reminder, about two thirds of that net debt number relates to leases. And of course, I'll cover cash and the balance sheet in more detail in a moment. So revenue, here's a simple bridge of the revenue number. The million lower volume represents around a 1.5% decline for the full year, reflecting those softer markets, but as I mentioned improving in H2.

Speaker 2

Price deflation of million reflects a full year impact of about 3%. Branch changes, mostly closures along with a small number of openings are not reflected in the like for like numbers. They resulted in a net £16,000,000 drop in revenue. The closures account for about £25,000,000 of lost revenue. These were underperforming often poorly located branches and their closure is part of the restructuring, which will help the bottom line.

Speaker 2

Finally, working days and FX in aggregate were a very slight headwind on revenue in the year. So a bit more detail on revenue. This slide shows the H1, H2 and full year growth rates by OpCo on the left and on the right, the trends in the group revenue growth rates quarter by quarter. So starting on the left hand side, as we've said, market conditions remain challenging across the year, but in all of the markets, bar Poland, the H2 like for likes improved over H1, albeit partly due to weaker comparators. The UK highlights were firstly UK Roofing, which reverted to growth in H2, outperforming a weak market by, in our view, a considerable margin.

Speaker 2

And secondly, the H2 improvement in UK interiors, while still declining in H2, that rate improvement to a 6% decline is better than the market in our view and a very solid result in the circumstances. And Gavin will talk in more detail about the management and other changes we've made in that business during the second half. The French market was tough in both Interiors and Roofing, but again, we saw improvement in our H2 numbers, especially in Roofing, and both businesses continue to execute on their plans very effectively. Our German business was 2% down for the full year. As Gavin mentioned, a significant achievement in a very challenged market and Gavin will touch on some of the specifics we're doing in that business to drive that performance.

Speaker 2

The Polish market dipped unexpectedly in Q3, as we've mentioned previously, but stabilized in Q4 and we remain pleased with the performance there. Gavin will talk about what we've done recently in The Benelux to transform the cost base and profitability in The Netherlands. And throughout that process, we've also seen a stabilization of underlying top line growth. And finally, Ireland improved further to deliver a strong growth rate of 17% in H2. And as a result, we also saw a good fairly rapid improvement in their operating margin.

Speaker 2

Turning to the right of the slide, you can see the trend on volumes and price for the group as a whole over the course of the year. So in short, of the 4% full year sales decline, about two thirds was due to lower pricing and a third was volume. On volumes, the rate of decline, that green dotted line, moderated over H2 as we'd suggested it would when we reported at the half year. This was largely due to the lapping of increasingly weak comparators, but we also saw stabilization in absolute volumes in a number of markets. In the event H2 volumes were flat over the prior year and actually Q4 was marginally positive as you can see here.

Speaker 2

On pricing, the blue dotted line, that remained a slight headwind throughout the year, improving slightly in H2 to around minus 2% or 3%. This was partly net deflation on input costs in our product mix, with some deflation on commodities, notably steel, slightly outweighing some modest levels of increases in certain of our more core products. And then in addition to that, we saw some heightened selling price pressure as would be expected. So the black line is the group total like for like rate, I. E.

Speaker 2

The aggregate of the two dotted lines. And in summary, that improved from minus 6% in H1 to minus 4% in Q3 and improved again to minus 1% in Q4. And we've seen that improving trajectory continue in the first two months of twenty twenty five with like for like sales flat over the prior year for those two months in aggregate. Profit bridge, this shows the year over year drivers of operating profit. The first two red bars show the gross profit impact of those sales movements that I've just talked about, including the net impact from the closed branches.

Speaker 2

And combined, they're obviously the main driver, including the gross margin impact of pricing pressures. We do remain satisfied with how the businesses are handling that pricing environment and the trade offs involved with volumes and making sure that we emerge from this low point in the cycle well placed to grow the margin. And you can see that elsewhere in gross margin there was a slight positive reflecting some favorable geographic mix, notably UK roofing in Germany and good management of product mix. Moving across to the right hand side, the million inflation within our operating cost was back towards more normal levels based on historic leverages after the more extreme increases in 2022 and 2023. Employee costs are about 50% of our total OpEx and saw inflation of around 3% to 4%, which accounts for about 70% of that million number.

Speaker 2

The million in the green bar is the underlying savings we've made in OpEx versus the prior year, a pretty material number. I'll cover that in greater detail on the next slide. So as you can see, we delivered million full year operating profit. And just for clarity, that was million in H1 and million in H2. I think overall, you can see clearly the drop through impact that lower revenue has on our business model with a branch network oriented cost base that's primarily people, branch estate costs and fleet.

Speaker 2

And as we've said before that leverage does of course work the other way around too and will do so when volumes recover, but in a more efficient and effective business than we had a couple of years ago. So So just some more detail on those OpEx actions. The left hand side shows a simple bridge from the reported OpEx reduction of 32,000,000 to the 42,000,000 of underlying savings. Of that $4,223,000,000 was unrelated to what we term restructuring, I. E.

Speaker 2

There were no one off costs required. It was driven rather by rigorous cost control, including most notably the disciplined management of the natural headcount churn throughout the business, I. E. Not replacing levers. On restructuring, which contributed million of year over year OpEx savings, we talked at last year's full year results of delivering million of permanent annualized savings through actions taken to that point and that increased to million at the half year.

Speaker 2

That has delivered as expected and we've since implemented additional initiatives such that this program now totals million as highlighted on the right hand side of the slide. Broadly million of that benefited million versus million in million in 2024 versus 2023 and we expect another million benefit in 2025 versus 2024. In H2 of twenty twenty four, the most significant elements of those changes were in UK Interiors and Benelux, which Gavin will touch on in more detail. As noted on here, some of these restructuring OpEx reductions are related to closed branches and so the net profit impact is slightly less, so we'd expect a net underlying profit benefit of around million this year versus 2024. The cash cost to deliver these cumulative restructuring savings is million with million spent to date.

Speaker 2

Of the balance yet to be incurred, much of this will be spent in H1 of this year. So taking a step back, in aggregate through restructuring and the ongoing management I mentioned, our group headcount was four thirty or 6% lower at the end of the year than at the start. Cash flow, in the appendix we've included the usual more detailed breakdown of cash flow and net debt. This slide just shows, focuses on the key drivers of free cash flow. The million EBITDA on the left was million lower than the prior year, which drove the drop from positive free cash flow in 2023 to the million outflow in 2024 shown here.

Speaker 2

The next item, that first red bar, lease payments on our fleet and estate was similar to the prior year. That will grow slightly over time with the business as I've said before, not least with inflation, but it remains a relatively stable number. We're a CapEx light business. As you know, the million spent in million was in line with normal trends of recent years and reflects our continued targeted investment in the business. Working capital intensity also remains similar to the prior year at around 10% of sales.

Speaker 2

This has been a pretty stable number, edging down in 2022 and 2023 and rising very marginally in 2024. Timings of payments and receipts at year events can cause some small swings. But our average working capital as a percentage of sales, which is a key metric for us internally, did fall during the year and that remains a major focus for 2025 and beyond. The million of cash exceptions in the period relates mostly to the restructuring actions I just talked about plus the one off costs related to the refi and some relatively modest costs related to an ERP upgrade in Poland. And finally, we have interest and tax.

Speaker 2

Of the million of interest, roughly million related to the imputed interest within our leases and the balance was interest payable on the old bond. Cash tax was very H2 weighted as guided at the half year point. I'll cover the forward view of these numbers in the technical guidance. So that was 2024 cash flow. Improving cash generation clearly remains a key priority for us.

Speaker 2

Turning now to the balance sheet. In October, as most of you will know, we successfully refinanced our million bond, extending the maturity out from 2026 to late twenty twenty nine. The new coupon is higher at 9.75% reflecting the movement in euro base rates since late twenty twenty one. Other than that the terms are basically unchanged. The bonds are covenant light instrument which in practice means it will be subject to no covenant tests.

Speaker 2

At the same time, in addition to the bond, we renewed the million RCF facility we have in place with a syndicate of five banks. The only change of any note there was that we amended the levels at which the leverage covenant is tested, given the weaker market conditions at the point of renewal and to give us the maximum flexibility. Details are shown on the right hand side. So for 2025, for example, we have a covenant set at 6.5 times. This is tested at quarter ends only and only if the RCF is over 40% drawn, I.

Speaker 2

E. We could draw million without triggering a test irrespective of the actual leverage level. And there are no other covenant tests to be clear. Finally, on the refi for completeness, the tender offer for the new bond was almost all taken up, but left a small million stub on the old bond. That remains in place and has in effect provided million of additional liquidity until it's repaid, which has to happen by November 2026.

Speaker 2

Just looking at some of these specific numbers in the bars there, liquidity remains robust as you can see being million at the year end despite the cash outflow in 2024. The million RCF was undrawn throughout the year and remains undrawn. Net debt rose in line with a cash outflow to million million of this relates to net leases on our fleet and estate, and that latter number has been pretty stable across the year. Leverage on a post IFRS 16 basis, as with all our reporting, finished the year at 4.7 times and that year on year increase from 3.5 reflects the lower profitability and specifically lower EBITDA. We're of course targeting a reduction in leverage and expect a recovery in profitability to drive it down over time.

Speaker 2

And just to provide some extra clarity in this area and especially on the combined impact of our current credit metrics alongside our updated banking arrangements, I've added some data points at the bottom right of the page, which may help with modeling. Firstly, working capital typically peaks in September in any year and normally it's around million higher than the year end number. Secondly, we need around million of cash around the group at any one time. That's a bit lower than used to be the case and than we previously reported as we've continued to improve our cash management. And lastly, our peak intra month cash requirements are normally about million higher than a month end, although, of course, this does not affect covenants being intra month.

Speaker 2

So taking all those factors into account, we believe we're in a comfortable position from a liquidity perspective. And more specifically, we cannot envisage a scenario this year in which the RCF is ever drawn at a month or quarter end. And any intra month drawings, if they happen, would be very rare and at very low levels. And on top of that, the additional covenant headroom provides flexibility for us, allowing us to run the business as dynamically as necessary. And finally, just a few points on technical guidance to assist with models.

Speaker 2

As regards the impact of inflation and deflation on the top line, we're seeing modest increases in our input costs from suppliers, which we expect to pass on in a normal way. We're also seeing continued pressure on sales prices given the general environment. So in aggregate, we expect those two to net out and for pricing to be broadly flat for the full year. OpEx inflation will, as always, remain a factor and we expect this to remain broadly at the levels we saw in 2024, I. E.

Speaker 2

A 2% to 3% increase. Within this is the impact of the National Insurance increase in The UK, which has a million full year effect for us, Obviously, roughly three quarters of that in 2025 taking effect from next month. CapEx, very similar to our run rate of recent years, we expect in the range of 15,000,000 to 20,000,000. On interest, the full year impact of the new bond versus the old one is about an 11,000,000 increase in annual costs. That's about million.

Speaker 2

So the year over year impact in 2025 and 2024 is about million. With a slight increase in interest on leases, we currently expect a full year charge in the range of million to million. And on tax, as we reported previously we have tax assets in The UK and Benelux and as such we don't expect to pay corporation tax there for some time. We do have liabilities in our other operating companies where we generate taxable profit. Given this mix and the fact we don't yet recognize the tax assets from an accounting perspective, our underlying effective tax rate is not meaningful.

Speaker 2

It's more helpful to guide to a P and L number, which this year I expect to be in the mid single digit millions. And our cash tax for 2025 will be lower than '24 due to the lower profit in 2024 and the fact that last year's cash tax did include an element of catch up in Germany as we've reported previously. So that concludes my update. In summary, tough markets were certainly a major factor throughout the year, but the business is managing through the headwinds well and we're continuing to take the actions that will help both the short and the long term, notably in reducing the cost base in a way that's sustainable and that will improve performance and the leverage benefit that we get as markets and volumes recover. And of course, the refinancing provides stability and certainty on our funding and liquidity for an extended period of time.

Speaker 2

So with that, I'll hand it back to Gavin.

Speaker 1

Brilliant. Thanks, Ian. Appreciate that. So just in terms of the overall business review, I always find this slide is quite helpful just to look at our group operations on one slide at a glance. And what you can see from this is, last year, 70% of our profit was driven from The UK and from France, with a further 11% each from Germany and Poland, and then also the contribution there from Ireland as well.

Speaker 1

And just a reminder on the left hand side of that slide that in Germany and in France, we don't trade as SIG, but we have really strong indigenous brands with LaRiviere and LEET in France and then Vigo and VTI in Germany. But that just gives you sort of a one page at a glance as to where we generate the profit that we have within the group. Overall, in terms of the market conditions, I don't really intend to spend a huge amount of time explaining how difficult the markets have been. I think everybody understands that and particularly the impact on residential newbuild within our markets. Across our business generally, we are still around about a fiftyfifty split between residential and non residential.

Speaker 1

And we're about a 40 fivefifty five split between RMI and newbuild with newbuild being the 55 and RMI being 45%. But generally across the group, we've got this really nice spread between residential and non residential and RMI and newbuild. France and Germany and The UK being our largest geographic markets just put some headlines here in terms of the market backdrop. Certainly, in terms of France and Germany, they would have been the weakest markets that we saw during 2024, and we expect to see those stabilize during 2025 and return to growth during 2026. In terms of The UK, I think confidence is slightly ahead of where it is in terms of Germany and in France.

Speaker 1

And as we go through 2025, we expect to see that continuation of market recovery as we go through The UK into the second half going towards the end of twenty twenty five. But I think in all of those three geographic markets, the underlying demand for construction, the underlying demand for housing and infrastructure remains very strong. In terms of long term growth drivers, I think it's important that we just recognize the breadth that we have in SIG and the sort of sectors that we do supply into. The underlying demand for construction remains very strong across Europe. And as we continue to see those markets recover, we should see benefits to that within SIG.

Speaker 1

And certainly, in all of those geographies, the importance of growing construction to the overall economic recovery is really important. Across Europe, we do have an aging housing stock, an aging housing stock that needs RMI and also an aging housing stock that in some cases needs replacing with new housing. And again, as we continue to see those markets recover, that demand for housing and for infrastructure spend, we should see really bringing benefits through to us. And as ever, we mentioned here the sustainability driven tailwind, which as we have to insulate better, we have to manage energy better, we have to decarbonize our built environment, all driving towards products that SIG are very, very strong in. And I think if you look at those three big areas of the construction head of the construction tailwind, the aging housing stock and sustainability, all of those areas play into core product areas that we deal with within SIG.

Speaker 1

In terms of the revenue performance, again, I think this is just very much at a glance. You can see from this chart that our UK Interiors business is still our largest business by revenue. But you'll also see from this chart that over 2024, we had genuine like for like growth in both the Irish business and in The UK roofing business with downward market pressures in most of those areas causing that sort of revenue sort of shrinking slightly compared to the previous year. But that'll just give you a really easy view in sterling as to where the revenue is generated across the group. The chart does change somewhat when we move into looking at operating profit and looking at operating margin.

Speaker 1

And what you can see from this slide is that actually our two largest profit makers in the group were our two roofing businesses. So UK roofing being the largest and French roofing being the second largest profit maker across the group. As you go down the chart and you get towards the bottom, you'll see there that we had a combined loss with UK Interiors and the Benelux business of around about £8,000,000 last year. And we're very, very confident in seeing a significant improvement in the performance of these businesses as we go through 2025 and confident where I would say really our U. K.

Speaker 1

Interiors business should return to profit during this year and the significant improvement within the Benelux business. You'll also see there that last year, UK Roofing, Leat and Ireland did deliver operating margins in excess of 3%. But it is quite a different chart when you look at it compared to the sales chart. But as I said, those ones at the bottom, that combined million loss, we should see a significant improvement in both of those businesses during 2025. Just referring back to the Capital Markets Day that we held at the end of twenty twenty three when we launched our GEMS strategy in terms of grow, execute, modernize and specialize and moving towards that medium term target of a 5% operating margin.

Speaker 1

That still very much drives our behavior in the business and drives what we're trying to do. In terms of grow, it was very much around revenue growth ahead of the market. And as we mentioned, particularly in UK roofing and in Germany, we believe we can clearly demonstrate growth ahead of difficult market conditions. The execution part over last year really was around the cost base and looking at how we're operating the business and how we do what we do, which is really important to us, but also enhancing the management team, bringing in new talent, new expertise to make sure that we're driving the improvements in the business as fast as we possibly can. We've continued to look at modernization.

Speaker 1

We'll talk a little bit later on about the new omnichannel platform in Germany. We've got great engagement from our customer base on that, and we'll also be launching the omnichannel platform in France later in 2025. In terms of specialization, we've brought in a lady called Lucy Lynch to head up the construction accessories business in The UK. Lucy's got huge experience in both tool station and Screwfix and I think brings a lot to our construction accessories business, not only in terms of leadership, but also what she can bring in terms of pricing, in terms of modernization and in terms of digitalization. So another key appointment to our UK Management Team.

Speaker 1

And we're continuing to invest in specialist markets sales expertise, both in The U. K. Special Markets business, but also, as I mentioned earlier, in our German business as well where we see opportunities in technical insulation, which is a far better margin than just looking at pure interiors product. So how are we growing? Well, if you look at UK roofing there, Chris Lodge and his team did a super job in driving growth in that business over the last twelve months.

Speaker 1

And in the second half of last year, you'll see we had 5% like for like growth in UK roofing. Over a hundred locations in our roofing network in The UK are really specialized distributor and really increasing what we do in terms of customer engagement and driving through the benefits of being a specialist. In Germany, we have a business that's led by a gentleman called Alphonse Horne. Alphonse returned to SIG about three years ago to drive that recovery within the German business. As Ian said earlier, we were just over 2% down in Germany last year in a market that we believe was somewhere closer to 9% down.

Speaker 1

So a significant outperformance of the German market by the team. And as I mentioned earlier, bringing in specialists to look at technical insulation, which we think has a really significantly better margin proposition than purely the historic interiors business. In Ireland, our distribution business is starting to improve and really starting to come through well. And obviously, Ireland is recognized as being the fastest growing economy in Europe and probably the fastest growing construction market as well. I think it's important when we look at Ireland and we did say at the last results that we try and give people a little bit more insight into the makeup of some of our group businesses.

Speaker 1

So Ireland is actually made up of four separate and distinct businesses. So yes, we have the SIG distribution business, which is the business that you would all associate with SIG, but we also have three contracting businesses in Ireland. We have SIG Workplace that specializes in office fit out. We have J. S.

Speaker 1

McCarthy that specializes in the refurbishment of infrastructure, but infrastructure really specializing in petrochem installations in Ireland. And then HHI, which is a market leading business in Northern Ireland specializing in the supply and installation of kitchens, bathrooms and roofline products. So you can see the Irish business is quite an interesting mix. It isn't just one business. The revenue is pretty much split 70% within the distribution business and 30% within the contracting businesses.

Speaker 1

Although I would just say as we stand here today, the profit is pretty much directly inverted from that. So last year, about 70% of our profit in Ireland came from the contracting businesses, 30% from distribution, which obviously highlights the opportunity we have to improve the profitability of the distribution within Ireland. We're also really working hard to get our businesses back on the front foot with our customer base. And just two weeks ago, we held a full on trade fair in what is going to be our new branch in Frankfurt. It's always helpful when you want to have a trade at a trade fair when you happen to have a 10,000 square meter empty unit to hold it in.

Speaker 1

But what we did here, we brought together from all over Germany something in the region of 1,500 customers, 300 supplier reps, two hundred colleagues, and we brought them all together over a thirty six hour period with a full on trade fair evening events as well. I took the whole of the executive leadership team from the group to Germany. We saw what was going on there. Fantastic event, but really reengaging with the customer base, putting the business back on the front foot. And Alphonse and his team did an unbelievable job in delivering that event in Germany just a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 1

In terms of execution and reshaping the cost base in terms of how we look at the business going forward, as Ian said, a huge amount of work went on right the way across the group. And certainly, if you look at reducing the headcount by four thirty over the period of last year, we're very conscious of the impact that that has on the individuals involved. But it was critically important for us to realign that cost base to give us something to move forward to that we felt more comfortable working with. If you look at the branch closures, I would say the vast majority of those branch closures have been long term underperformers where we didn't see the opportunity to turn the performance around. So we've taken the opportunity to close those branches and give us a branch network that we feel much more comfortable with that we can drive and that we can improve going forward.

Speaker 1

In terms of SIG UK and the interiors business in specific, Howard joined us on October. Howard's got a huge amount of experience in construction products in really well known businesses right the way across The UK. And during this sort of Q4 period last year, spent a lot of time working on headcount reduction, operational efficiency and really getting us well set for going into this year. There's a lot of sales initiatives going through that business right now as well. So as I said earlier, I'm very confident that we can get UK Interiors back into a profit for 2025, significantly better performance than we saw during 2024.

Speaker 1

In terms of the Benelux business that was our other loss maker, we have closed seven branches in The Netherlands during the again during Q4 of last year. There was a specific supply chain anomaly within the Benelux business whereby we separated the branch networks for wet products and dry products. And what we've done now is consolidate our supply through the network that was in place for the dry products, which we believe will bring a significantly better profit performance from the Benelux business this year. We put a new Managing Director, Bert DeRue, into the Benelux business late in 'twenty three. So Bert has been with us for almost eighteen months.

Speaker 1

And Robert Brockman joined us as the Finance Director in Benelux just twelve months ago. And all of this rationalization and restructuring plan is very much down to the new management team that we put into the Benelux business that we believe will drive us some significant improvements. In terms of modernization, I mean, the detail is really there on the slide, but the new e commerce site that we've launched in Germany, great engagement. A lady called Christina Schultz has driven that within our German management team, supported by a guy called Bartosz. And some of you may remember the first omnichannel system that we had within SIG was launched in Poland and Bartosz was a key part of that Polish team.

Speaker 1

So utilizing the expertise from Poland to help us launch that new site in Germany and that is up and running. And certainly, Bartosz has been working with the French team. And in terms of the LEED site, we will launch that later in 2025. We've continued with digitalization in The UK as well, not with the large scale projects of omnichannel, but certainly in terms of just really enhancing the customer experience using digital tools to really speed up the transfer of information. And particularly when it comes to technical services within our roofing business, we have a part of that business called AccuRoof, which is a design and supply business.

Speaker 1

And really modernizing that and bringing that into the digital era has really helped us there as well, which I think has played a key part in driving the performance of the overall U. K. Roofing business. In terms of specialization, again, some of you who were at the Capital Markets event will remember it was the first time that we'd really separated out our specialist market businesses in The U. K.

Speaker 1

Our Construction Accessories business, which really is more of an early cycle civils business, not involving pipes and drains, but really involving geotechnical products, really had a strong momentum coming into this part of the year, new management team in that business as well. But you'll see with getting projects like Anglian Water, this is a different set of projects than SIG would ordinarily have been involved in. It's taking us into infrastructure spend, making us a real specialist. And as an example, that geotechnical product that you can see on the photograph there, what that enables the contractor to do is to actually put a road down on-site much more quickly, much less expensive, and also it's much less invasive to the substrate underneath it. Within our Building Solutions business, one area that we've been developing is solar canopies.

Speaker 1

Now we are a steel manufacturing business in the Northwest Of England and that picture really that is a real picture of one of our solar canopies, but we're actually manufacturing these for contractors for them to install their solar systems. And certainly, one recent one that we did in Sunderland, there was this Omni system that we have there. So all of the cabling, all of the guts of the charging network is actually inside the steel structure. So you get this really clean and modern looking structure for solar charging in car parks. And then within Performance Technologies, we have a number of different brands in there, but one of them has been developing this Versa Panel product.

Speaker 1

And what it is, it's a composite product that involves cement particles and wood particles, but it has fantastic acoustic properties. It has fantastic thermal properties. So again, we're just kind of like really branching out into these specialist areas and these nice areas we do believe will have a real margin benefit for us going forward and helping us to drive towards that medium term 5% target. In terms of ESG, again, the data is there on the slide. One thing I would say about our sort of target for being net to zero carbon by 02/1935, For us as a distributor, that really is quite dependent on there being a commercially viable alternative to diesel in the very near future.

Speaker 1

The vast majority of our emissions here are from the vehicle fleet. And for us to achieve that target, we will need to see something that's commercially viable to to diesel coming through in the market, but still very much remaining part of our target. Health and safety, critically important. We have a very simple strap line in the business, which is keeping everyone safe every day, and we really drive the business on the back of wanting to make sure that everybody goes home safe at the end of every day's work. And I think, culturally, our colleagues really want to work within an environment that feels like that the colleagues are being valued and that we are looking after people.

Speaker 1

In terms of the employee engagement score, although the employee engagement score itself was lower than it was in 2023, I still think it's actually a very strong performance given that as we went through 2024, there was a lot of restructuring going on, there was a lot of headcount reduction going on. And still to have a positive EMPS score, I think is a really good result and really starts to show how the strength of the culture of the business is starting to come through. So finally, just a very quick summary and an outlook slide looking forward into 2025. I think in 2024, my view, a very robust performance against some really difficult end markets and a really good disciplined approach to cash management and to cost management and significantly refinancing the debt in 2024 in October. Looking ahead to 2025, I think we do see a gradual recovery coming through in the market.

Speaker 1

I think we understand certainly in terms of infrastructure spend, in terms of housing, we are relatively late cycle in most of our larger businesses. But as those markets continue to improve, we should absolutely see the top line washing through to the bottom line improving across the whole of the group. But again, as we go through '25, you will see a really disciplined approach both to cash management and to OpEx management. In terms of the medium to longer term, we do believe that our business is really well placed to take advantage of that medium term recovery. Operational leverage works both ways.

Speaker 1

And with the work we've done on efficiency and productivity across the group, we should see really strong recovery as volumes start to come through. And primary focus for us is shareholder value creation as we go forward, making sure that we get SIG back in the spotlight and making sure that we can be clearly seen to demonstrate that we can generate incremental profit, get back to generating free cash and making sure that we can bring some shareholder value going forward. That is the end of the presentation. Thank you for your attention. It's much appreciated.

Speaker 1

We're going to move into Q and A. In terms of the logistics for Q and A, if you have a question, if you could please raise your hand, we can bring a microphone to you so those following online can hear. When you get the microphone, if you could give us your name, the organization that you represent, then ask us the question. And obviously, the more difficult, the better because it keeps Ian occupied in terms of answering the difficult questions. But thank you very much.

Speaker 1

And if you've got a question, please raise your hand.

Speaker 3

Ami Gala from Citi. Just two questions for me. The first one was on the gross margin moves. Could you give us some more color in terms of how the gross margin evolved across your markets in UK and Europe in 2024? And how should we think about the outlook ahead?

Speaker 3

The second one was just on the competitive dynamics, especially in Europe. Given the sort of tough market backdrop that you've been through in the last two years, do you kind of have you seen more weakness from your competitors and potentially is that a tailwind as we kind of think about the outlook ahead?

Speaker 1

If I take the second one, I'll let you come back on the margins. In terms of the competitive field, you know what, it's quite interesting for those of us that have been around a while and can go back to sort of global financial crisis. There was this expectation that the market would people would fall out of the market and the competitive field would become less competitive. And it didn't happen then. And in reality, it hasn't happened over the past two years.

Speaker 1

So I don't think the competitive field has changed very much. But I think as an operator within our competitive field, I think we're now much better set up to really be a strong competitor and a market leading business than we were two, three, four years ago.

Speaker 2

On the gross margin, I mean, if you compare sort of 24 to the prior year, the biggest pressure from a pricing perspective was on the more commoditized products as you'd expect. So that sort of affects particularly the interiors businesses that are sort of exposed to dry lining, for example. So French interiors, UK interiors were probably the two that declined the most in the year. Others, frankly, one or two were flat, one or two went up marginally. So it's where we see the more commoditized products is where we saw the greatest pressure.

Speaker 2

I think as I mentioned, we did see a bit of a geographic benefit in the year, and we may see a little bit more of that in 'twenty five as well. But no, those interiors businesses were the ones that declined more than others.

Speaker 1

Bring the microphone down to Ainsley and then we'll move across to you, Charlie, after that.

Speaker 4

Thanks very much. And just two questions for me, please. Ainsley Lammer from Investec. So first, on The UK interior, you obviously closed three branches in that business. Is that all of the branches you need to close now closed?

Speaker 4

And when you expect to get back to kind of breakeven or maybe small profit this year? Is that without any help for the market, just some other kind of weakness from those branches that you closed presumably? And so a bit more color around that. And then secondly, just on the January, February early trade in, obviously, flat light for lights, maybe just a bit more color, price, volume within that. Any big differences between France, Germany, UK?

Speaker 4

Okay.

Speaker 1

So UK Interiors, no more plans to close any branches. So we did what we needed to do. And I think in terms of returning to profit during this year, don't necessarily need to see a market uplift for us to do that. I think the management plan that we have and the actions that we've taken will enable us to do that. Obviously, if we get some market uplift and we get some volume coming through, it'll be gratefully received and we'll take best advantage of it.

Speaker 1

But I'm still if the market stayed flat during 2025, I'm confident we can move that business back to profit as we go through. In terms of like for likes, I I don't want to get into specific numbers, but really, if you look at the at a group level, the like for like sales being flat in January and February, broadly, what you then look at is a like for a positive like for like performance in U. K. Interiors, in U. K.

Speaker 1

Roofing, in Germany and in Ireland with a negative like for like performance in France and the others kind of equating to get the group back to flat. That's a broad outline of how the first two months looks.

Speaker 2

And the price volume was sort of similar trends to that graph, so broadly slightly positive volume, slightly negative price.

Speaker 1

Okay. Charlie, I think it's you.

Speaker 5

Charlie Campbell, Stifel. Two quick questions, just first of all, if I can. So The U. K. Interior breakeven, is that a full year profit greater than zero or moving into profit greater than zero at some point in the year?

Speaker 5

Just

Speaker 1

So we are obviously just in the very first week in March. It's very early. My ambition, Charlie, honestly, is to have it in profit to report a profit for U. K. Interiors for the end of the year.

Speaker 5

And then just a second question, it's sort of on Germany. Am I right in thinking that that business is probably the most underweight to residential in the group? Is that correct?

Speaker 2

Yes. Yes. It is. Well, certainly one of. Right.

Speaker 2

Of the larger businesses, definitely, yes.

Speaker 5

Yes. Okay. So if we're thinking about markets, we should be thinking more about nonresidential than residential for Germany. Correct. Yes.

Speaker 1

And that's similar in Poland as well.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you. And the last question was on the sort of the going concern note and the sensitivities around the covenants. There's a calculation in there that says that sales have to drop 11% to 13% for the covenant to be breached. It does say that you're allowed to take mitigating steps in that.

Speaker 5

We're not getting too granular. Just sort of what steps those are that you're allowed in that calculation just to help us out a bit.

Speaker 2

I mean, as you know, the stress testing, the reverse stress testing is something we have to do as part of that. So that's kind of why that data is in there. And I think it actually demonstrates quite well some of the things that I was talking about there in terms of the comfort of liquidity. I mean, it's just all we're talking about there mitigations is additional actions on cost, delaying a bit of CapEx, etcetera. So it's sort of the routine sort of mitigations you would do if the market was worse than we expected.

Speaker 2

But it's very all of that is obviously very much sort of worst case scenario numbers.

Speaker 1

Okay. A couple over on this side. Let me go to Stephen first.

Speaker 6

Hi, Stephen Rawlinson from Applied Value. Three, if I may. Can you just on slide 12, Ian, I think you went through quite a number of the issues that might be arise if the working capital gets stretched and you get a recovery in the second half, which everybody's sort of hoping for. But could you tell me on two aspects of that? One is, have you been getting terms from suppliers during this difficult phase in the last year or two, which might evaporate if market moves upwards and sort of to the extent that they've been able to help out here?

Speaker 6

And secondly, with regard to working capital, I think one of the dictums has always been from Gavin that if it isn't on the shelf in the first place, you can't get somebody to buy it and take it off following. So just sort of how would that work through with the working capital requirements that might come from recovery? Secondly, can I just touch on bad debts? Because obviously during the difficult phase that we've had, but also actually in the recovery phase, some of your customers might get overstretched. Can you just talk us through thought process on that?

Speaker 6

And finally, and it's probably a bit of an early too early on probably to respond to this, but obviously, decarbonization is something that you've been bearing in mind with regard to the uplift in demand. If government switch their support for decarbonization to buying guns and warships, Where might you stand on that? Forgive me if that's a bit early, but it does actually ask the question to what extent you expected decarbonization to boost demand.

Speaker 1

Yes. Good question. If I take the last one, I'll pass you back to the first two for Ian to take. It is a good question. It is very early to answer it.

Speaker 1

But I think one of the things that's really important, if you look at the slide that we actually put up, I think that pent up demand for construction in general, the aging housing stock and the aging infrastructure across Europe are every bit as important in terms of the decarbonization agenda for us, particularly when you look in areas like construction accessories or you look at things like roofing. So I don't think if there was a sudden turn away from decarbonization that I don't think will happen, it's not the end of our plans for growth and recovery.

Speaker 2

Okay. And in terms of suppliers, I mean, yes, broadly, as things get better, whatever pressure there is there from suppliers will moderate. I mean, clearly, as you can imagine at the moment in a tough market, you know, suppliers look even harder. You know, credit insurance gets tighter across the construction industry generally. So but our, you know, the teams manage that very well.

Speaker 2

And I think to your point, as as markets recover, that will sort of get better from where we are today. And in working working capital more broadly, certainly, yeah, you need it on the shelves. We do think there's still opportunities there to to, we're very, very conscious of making sure that we do have the stuff there. We've seen that in our business over the last two, three, four years. The merits of having the stuff is critical, but we think there's opportunities and we think we can get the balance right and continue to sort of improve that working capital intensity.

Speaker 2

And on bad debts, yes, I mean, we've talked about this and got asked about this over the last couple of years and bad debts. And frankly, again, we're not in the least bit complacent about it. I think we manage it very well across the business. We've not seen we've not suffered much in the way of bad debts. In fact, our bad debt charge in '24 was lower than '23.

Speaker 2

Of course, we'll keep a watch on it. As you say, as things start to grow, people might sort of overstretch. But I think I'd rather have that problem than what we've been managing for the last year or two.

Speaker 1

Anybody else on this side of the room? Okay. Thank you. Looking to look at my colleague over here and just see, have you had any questions that have come in online?

Operator

Yes, we do. We do have two questions that have come online. The first one is, what are the main triggers for the UK Interior segment to return to profitability in 2025? And the second one is could you please give some color on how much of the sales volume decline is coming from the closures?

Speaker 1

Okay. So if I take the first one, I'll pass on to Ian. I think in terms of UK interiors, Howard coming in as Managing Director with a huge amount of experience both in the sector and with our particular customer base, I think there's a number of things there. Primarily, we have significantly realigned the cost base in that business. And I think making sure that we can run with a very lean cost base in UK interiors is critical to making that profitability leap going forward.

Speaker 1

But I also think we've been able to sort of unleash a little bit more of the sales potential within that business as well. And so I think we will see a volume improvement in U. K. Interiors irrespective of what's happening in the market just because of the way that we're going to market commercially. So I think in UK interiors, getting back to profit this year is a combination of managing the cost and the margin really tightly and just unleashing a little bit more of the sales potential that we have within the business.

Speaker 2

Yes. The closed branches, I mentioned, were about million. So it was net 16 with some of the branches we added. So million lost revenue, so about 1% for last year.

Speaker 1

Do we have any more questions? Or is that one more? Okay.

Operator

We do have one more question. Thank you. So the question is, to clarify, you are expecting to realize million in gross cost savings next year and £11,000,000 net cost savings realized year over year in FY 2025. Will this translate fully to an £11,000,000 uplift in FY 2025 underlying profit, or will there be more costs in order to realize the savings? If so, how much?

Operator

Could you provide guidance in full year '25 for cash outflow number? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay. So, yes, it's an the net GBP 11,000,000 profit year over year is the number that I mentioned. So the GBP 16,000,000 of OpEx savings, but then there is a bit of lost gross profit on the closed branches. So GBP 11,000,000 is a year over year benefit from restructuring. Yes, there are other cost headwinds, basically inflation, which I mentioned, so that'll be 2% to 3% on the OpEx number.

Speaker 2

So that's obviously going the other way. And we certainly, at this stage in the year, sitting here in early March, we don't want to guide to a full year free cash flow number. I've given quite a few bits of guidance there on some of the specifics. The big levers, obviously, are profit and working capital. We'll give a bit more color on that, obviously, as we go through the year.

Speaker 2

We certainly expect and hope that the free cash flow will be better than we delivered in 2024, but we'll give a bit more color as we go through the year.

Speaker 1

Okay. Brilliant. Thank you. Really appreciate everyone coming out this morning. As I said at the very beginning, I know it's a really busy week.

Speaker 1

It's certainly a really busy day. So thank you for your time and for your interest. For those who've joined us online, again, thank you for joining us. And hopefully, we'll see you all in six months' time. Thank you very much.

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Earnings Conference Call
SIG H2 2024
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