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Wickes Group PLC on Thursday lifted its dividend and backed its full-year guidance on solid interim revenue growth, due to a recovery in 'do-it-for-me' sales.
Wicked shares were trading 8.0% higher at 124.90 pence each on Thursday morning in London.
The Watford, England-based home improvement retailer reported a pretax profit of £33.5 million for the six months that ended July 2, down 6.2% from £35.7 million a year before.
The company said that the decline was mainly due to ‘slightly’ higher adjusting items due to IT separation costs.
Adjusting items increased 62% to £19.6 million from £12.1 million.
More positively, revenue grew 1.3% to £822.3 million from £812.0 million.
The company attributed this to a strong recovery in delivered do-it-for-me service sales.
Wickes entered the year with an elevated pipeline of do-it-for-me orders. This was due to the impact of Covid on the ability of its installation teams to deliver projects in the final quarter of 2021, it said. DIFM like-for-like delivered sales were up 30% year-on-year in the first half.
Wickes raised its dividend by 71% to 3.6 pence from 2.1p.
The company said it has seen a recent‘ softening’ in the do-it-yourself market from the very high levels of demand experienced during the pandemic.
‘While the macroeconomic environment remains uncertain, we are confident that we have the right model to continue outperforming the market,’ Wickes stated.
The company backed its full-year guidance of an adjusted pretax profit in the range of £72 million to £82 million. In financial 2021, it generated an adjusted pretax profit of £85 million.
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