Business
Withdrawal of funding from Du
Withdrawal of funding from Du.
About this update from Topps Tiles Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n RNS Number : 3449E Topps Tiles PLC 18 December 2009 \n \n \n\n\nTopps Tiles Plc\nWithdrawal of funding from Dutch subsidiary\n\nThe Board of Topps Tiles Plc (\"Topps\" or \"the Group\"), the UK's largest tile and wood flooring specialist, announces that it has taken the decision to withdraw support and funding for its loss-making Dutch subsidiary. As a consequence, the Board believes that the Dutch business is unlikely to be able to continue trading on a going concern basis.\n\nThe Dutch subsidiary comprises 12 stores and accounted for 4% of the Group's revenue in 2009, but made a loss of £4.9 million during the last financial period. Topps continues to trade from 308 stores in the UK, and the UK business will not be impacted by this decision. There is likely to be a c.£1m one-off non cash write down impacting the Group's results as a consequence of this action. As disclosed in the annual financial report, issued on 24 November 2009, in the first 7 weeks of the new financial period UK revenues increased by 2.2% on a like-for-like basis. Since that date, our UK trading figures have continued to follow an encouraging trend, and we will give a full update on current trading in our AGM and Interim Management Statement which will be published on January 12th 2010.\n\nThe Board of Topps undertook an extensive review of the Dutch business during 2008 and 2009 during which time the management team of the Dutch business was reorganised and it became apparent that significant structural issues needed to be addressed. The restructuring of the business on a financially sustainable basis has not been successful and the business has faced increasing challenges as financial performance has declined, in part driven by the difficult economic climate. The business has been loss making since 2008 and current trading is significantly behind revised financial targets set by the local management team.\n\nThis has been a difficult decision for the Board to take, but it believes that this is the right course of action, as&nbs...