Speedy Hire
Plc
("Speedy", "the Company" or "the Group")
Trading
Update
Speedy, the UK's leading tools and
equipment hire services company, operating across the construction,
infrastructure and industrial markets, provides the following
trading update.
Trading update
The business has continued to
perform resiliently in the face of cost inflation and macroeconomic
uncertainty. The challenges faced across much of the
Construction sector mean that revenues from
our National customers are now up 3% year-on-year as at end of the
third quarter, compared to +5% at the end of H1, whilst revenues
from our Regional customers have continued to track 6% down year on
year, unchanged from the position reported at H1. The warmer winter
period has also impacted our revenue from seasonal products,
despite us being ready for the usual cold weather and the important
support we provide to our customers.
At the same time, we continue to see
revenue growth from opportunities with both new and existing
National customers and, in the third quarter, we secured over £40m
of annualised revenue from new multi-year contracts. These
contracts represent attractive growth opportunities but have taken
longer to mobilise, due to contract specific delays. Therefore, new
contract revenues will have only marginal benefit in FY24 with the
full effect coming in FY25. We are pleased by these contract wins
and have a strong pipeline of opportunities. This new business has
been secured with good pricing discipline and demonstrates the
attractiveness of Speedy's customer offering.
Velocity Strategy
We continue to focus on delivering
growth opportunities as well as operational efficiencies through
exceptional customer service, and excellent supplier and customer
relationships. We remain on track with the
early progress of our Velocity strategy launched at our Capital
Markets Day in July 2023.
As anticipated, supply chain
benefits arising from the implementation of Velocity are being seen
in the second half of FY24 and will continue to deliver benefits
into future years. Our acquisition of Green Power Hire Limited
("GPH") continues to perform in line with its business plan and
since purchase we have bought further units to enlarge our battery
storage unit fleet and satisfy customer demand.
We confirmed in November that our
partnership with B&Q was evolving to a more digitally focused
model. We are pleased to confirm that our products and services are
now available for digital hire in-store within every B&Q and
Tradepoint as well as on the respective websites, demonstrating
strong strategic progress in our Trade and Retail
offering.
We continue to refine our strategy
and transformation programme, led by systems and data, to ensure
that we will have an efficient operating structure to power our
growth.
Net
Debt
With the acquisition of GPH, net
debt increased to £117.3m as at 31 December 2023 which marks the
normal seasonal high point. Working capital continues to be well
controlled and we expect net debt to reduce from this level in the
last quarter of the financial year, to end the year comfortably
within our target leverage range.
Outlook
We continue to make good progress
with the implementation of our Velocity strategy, which will
deliver benefits and opportunity for Speedy for the long term.
Nevertheless, with weakness in some of our end markets and seasonal
product lines, and some delays in mobilisation of significant
contract wins, the Board expects the full year profits to be below
its previous expectations.
Enquiries:
Speedy Hire Plc
Tel: 01942 720 000
Dan Evans, Chief Executive
Paul Rayner, Chief Financial
Officer
MHP
Communications
Oliver Hughes
Tel: 07885
224532
Katie Hunt
Tel:
07884 494112
Notes:
Inside Information: This
announcement contains inside information for the purposes of
article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 as it forms
part of domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal)
Act 2018.