Topps Tiles sales and profits rise

Topps Tiles has posted an uptick in sales and profits during its first half as it makes progress against its turnaround strategy.

The tile specialist swung to a profit before tax of £1.9m in the 26 weeks to 29 March, up from a loss of £1.5m. On an adjusted basis, pre-tax profit rose 3.2% to £3.2m.

Group revenue increased 4.1% to £127.8m, which it attributed an improving performance across its first and second quarters.

Topps reported its acquisition of CTD tiles pulled in £30.3m of annualised sales and racked up £1m of trading losses. It said the business was not yet fully integrated due to the CMA investigation, but that it expects CTD to breakeven by quarter four.

The group reported a “strong start” to the second half, with adjusted sales increasing 9.5% in the first seven weeks and like-for-likes at Topps up 6.2%.

Topps Tiles chief executive Rob Parker said: “I am pleased with the progress we have made over the first half, which has included an improving sales trend, offsetting the majority of our inflationary cost pressures, and continuing to deliver our strategy; while also delivering a small increase in underlying profitability.

“We have recently announced the conclusion of the CMA investigation into our acquisition of CTD, which will form a major part of the business-to-business element of our growth strategy moving forwards.

“As we look forward to the second half, current trading shows a strong improvement in both our market leading omni-channel business, Topps Tiles, and also in the newer parts of the group; and we have a clear plan to move CTD into profitability by the final quarter of our financial year and into growth beyond that.”

“As a result, we expect our full year profits to show a meaningful improvement over the prior year.”

Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter