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Wallpaper revival decorates Walker Greenbank results

This article is more than 17 years old

Walker Greenbank, the maker of Harlequin and Zoffany wallpaper, did better than expected last year as wallpaper came back into vogue.

Shares in the company jumped almost 8% to 47.25p today as it said profits for the year to January 31 will beat City expectations.

All four of its wallpaper brands - Harlequin, Sanderson, Morris and Zoffany - are selling well.

Harlequin, which costs between £24 and £29 a roll, has proved the biggest hit with customers, with revenues soaring by more than 30%.

The handprinted, £50 a roll Zoffany brand, formerly the jewel in the crown, has recovered from four years of decline and will record its first year of growth.

Last year saw the Milton Keynes-based company move into the black for the first time in six years. Its fortunes have improved thanks to a shift in consumer taste away from minimalism, with people increasingly opting for wallpaper and fabric rather than paint.

Chief executive, John Sach, talked of a "spectacular turnaround". He said: "Walker Greenbank had a very difficult seven years where it lost a spectacular amount of money.

The fashion started changing two or three years ago - there was a move back to colour and pattern. Minimalism is kind of dead."

He predicted that printed fabric, which has also been in decline, will make a comeback like wallpaper in the next couple of years.

The firm was catapulted into the limelight nine years ago when it supplied £300-a-roll Pugin wallpaper to the lord chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, for the £650,000 refurbishment of his apartment in the Houses of Parliament. The Pugin wallpaper was made by a business that has since been sold by Walker Greenbank.

The group produces a similar handblock print wallpaper for £100 to £150 a roll which it sells mainly to Americans.

Mr Sach sees the US market as a big opportunity in the future, and the firm already has a showroom in New York.

House broker Teather & Greenwood immediately upgraded its estimates after today's announcement.

Analyst Stephen Thomas added £1m to turnover for the current year and, reflecting an improvement in margins, nudged up operating profits by £170,000. But he left his underlying pretax profit forecast unchanged at £1.5m as he assumes that spending on marketing and brand development will rise.

Profits are set to rise to £2.5m next year. As part of an extensive restructuring, Walker Greenbank slashed its ballooning pension deficit through a buyback scheme from £11m in 2005 to £6m last July.

It is also tackling its debt mountain, which amounted to £9.9m in July.

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