Wickes increases full year profit and sales
Travis Perkins has reported that like-for-like sales at its consumer division, which includes the Wickes DIY chain and Toolstation, grew by 5.3% in the year to 31 December 2015.
Revenue climbed by 8% to £1.38 billion as the division made strong market share gains.
Adjusted operating profit, excluding property profits and the one-off credit for impairment reversals in Toolstation Europe, increased by 11.7% to £87 million driven by the significant improvements made to the customer propositions across the division during the year.
Travis Perkins said the consumer division returned to good growth in the fourth quarter after a period of market weakness in the third quarter of the year. Growth was predominantly driven by strong kitchen and bathroom sales in Wickes and continued like-for-like growth and network expansion in Toolstation.
Wickes and Toolstation both enhanced their online propositions in the period and now offer a one-hour click and collect service. Online transactions now make up over 8% of Wickes sales, with half of the growth in online transactions in 2015 coming through click and collect.
Across the wider Travis Perkins group, revenue increased £5.94 billion from £5.58 billion in the previous year. However, like-for-like sales growth slowed to 3.8% from 7.3% as the group faced difficult market conditions.
Pre-tax profit declined by 30.2% to £224 million in the period.
John Carter, Travis Perkins chief executive, said: “The group has delivered a good performance in 2015 despite the weaker than expected RMI market in the second half of the year.
“We believe that the growth drivers in our markets remain strong and welcome the return to growth of mortgage approvals and secondary housing transactions in the second half of 2015. This has supported good growth in RMI sales for the group in January and February 2016.”
