Full year highlights
- Revenue increased by 6.5%, like-for-like revenue up 3.8% (11.4% two-year like-for-like)
- Adjusted operating profit, excluding property profits, increased by 8.7% to £389m
- Adjusted EPS increased by 4.3% to 124.1p, lower than the 7.6% growth in adjusted operating profit due to lower property profits and non-cash charges relating to foreign exchange contracts
- Full-year dividend increased 15.8% to 44.0p per share, reflecting confidence in future growth
- Network expansion continued, with net 53 new branches and stores opened, including implants
- Significant progress on major strategic fronts, including supply chain investments in General Merchanting and completion of the re-segmentation in Plumbing & Heating
- Free cash flow of £317m (note 13) at a cash conversion rate of 77% (2014: 66%) used to fund £134m of growth capex
- Lease adjusted return on capital employed (note 15b) increased to 10.5% reflecting higher earnings offset by the increase in capital employed including the £104m invested in freehold property
- Non-cash impairment charge of £141m recognised against goodwill and other intangible assets of PTS and F&P given the challenging market conditions
John Carter - Chief Executive Officer 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 made very good progress on our key strategic priorities; modernising General Merchanting, transforming Wickes and re-segmenting the Plumbing & Heating division, and we continued to improve our customer propositions, delivering access to greater ranges with better availability. The increased capital and operational investments are enabling us to leverage the scale of the business and exploit structural advantages in sourcing and supply chain, driving our continued outperformance.
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. This gives us further confidence that through our strategy we will successfully deliver against our medium-term targets of sales outperformance, low double-digit profit growth and improving returns."
