LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Builders' merchant Travis Perkins said on Tuesday that it swung to a profit in the year to the end of December 2019 thanks to solid performances from its merchant business and Toolstation and a recovery in Wickes.
The company swung to a pre-tax profit of ?180.8m from a loss of ?49.4m in 2018, as revenue rose to ?6.96bn from ?6.74bn. Adjusted operating profit increased 7.8% during the year to ?442m. Travis Perkins said this was driven by a recovery at soon- to-be-demerged Wickes, the transformation programme in plumbing and heating and the positive impact of cost reduction activities.

Chief executive officer Nick Roberts said the company had delivered a "strong" operational and financial performance against a "challenging" market backdrop.

"Our merchanting businesses gained market share as a result of a range of initiatives to improve our customer proposition, including increased local empowerment for our branch managers, while the pace of the Toolstation expansion accelerated. The actions put in place to improve our Wickes and plumbing & heating businesses meant that both recovered well during the year and made positive contributions towards the group's overall performance.

"Whilst trading conditions in 2019 have been challenging we have seen some green shoots of recovery in our lead indicators, although it remains too early to point towards any tangible improvement in repair, maintenance and improvement."

At 0808 GMT, the shares were up 2.9% at 1,486.50p.

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