Howden Joinery Grp Ord (HWDJF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to Haydn's 2024 results presentation. I will start by introducing our performance for the year. Paul Hayes will then review our financial results for the period. I will then share my perspective on our performance and outline our plans for this year and then we'll look forward to taking your questions. The business performed well in, as we anticipated, a challenging marketplace. The results met our expectations as we continued with our investment programme, which is focused on our key capabilities, which gives us end-to-end a stronger business. Group sales were ahead of those in 2023 and were 47% up on 2019, being the year prior to the onset of the COVID. In the UK, we believe we gained market share, which helped us mitigate a significant single-digit decline in the overall size of the kitchen market. Entry-level kitchens represented a higher proportion of the kitchens we sold with sales of product in our kitchen categories collectively outperforming those of other established categories. We maintained an industry-leading gross margin with gross profit ahead of last year. We balanced recovery of cost rises with our commitment to providing competitive pricing across the board for our customers. Reported profit was in line with the previous year. We progressed with our strategic initiatives and plans for the UK business, which ended the year with 869 depots trading. Total sales of our international operations increased with a total of 78 depots trading at the year end. The business delivered strong operating cash flow and we maintained a robust balance sheet. This gives us the flexibility to continue to invest in our growth plans for the business and provide shareholders with increased dividends for the year. Today, we have also announced a new...