Topps Tiles warns General Election jitters are causing its sales to slump
Topps Tiles posted a dip in profit for its full-year results today, as it warned the upcoming General Election has hurt customer demand.
The figures
Profit before tax slipped 1.6 per cent year on year to £12.5m for the 12 months to the end of September.
Revenue climbed 1.1 per cent to £219.2m while Topps Tiles managed to cut net debt by almost a third, slashing its debt pile from £16.2m in 2018 top £11.3m this year.
Basic earnings per share rose 3.6 per cent to 5.18p, despite the company keeping its final dividend of 2.30p per share flat year on year, and its total dividend steady at 3.4p per share.
Why it’s interesting
Topps Tiles blamed the impending General Election for weighing down consumer demand since the end of its 2019 financial year. It warned that like-for-like sales have slumped 7.2 per cent in the first two months of its new financial year, compared to a 1.9 per cent decline in 2018.
The flooring specialist added that “a reduction in political uncertainty will be key to the short term outlook improving”.
What Topps Tiles said
CEO Matthew Williams said:
This has been another year of strategic progress for Topps, with a resilient sales performance in our retail business and significant development in our commercial operations. In Retail, our strategy of ‘Out-specialising the Specialists’ enabled us to deliver like-for-like sales growth and further enhance our market-leading gross margins in tough market conditions. In Commercial, we saw significant year-on-year sales growth as we continue to invest in constructing a market-leader over the medium term.
At the start of the new financial year, trading conditions have become more challenging, with consumer demand weakening further since the General Election was called in late October. Against this backdrop of heightened political and economic uncertainty, like-for-like sales in the first eight weeks have declined.
Whilst we expect external events will continue to weigh on consumer confidence for the immediate future, we remain confident that our market-leading retail offer and growing commercial operations give us a strong platform from which to deliver sustainable growth over the medium and long term.
Main image credit: Topps Tiles