Wickes Group plc (WIX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

And thank you for taking the time to join us this morning. And I'd also like to welcome everyone who is watching via the webcast. I'm here with our CFO, Mark George, and we are delighted to share with you our results for the six months to the end of June. We'll spend the next 20 minutes or so taking you through the performance of the business, as well as highlighting the great progress we are making on executing our strategic plans. I'm pleased to report we've had a positive first half sales performance within what continues to be a challenging market. This demonstrates that our strategy continues to deliver. Our uniquely balanced business model, which faces into all three routes to home improvement projects, has seen strong performance in local trade and do it for me, compensating for a DIY market that is normalising post COVID. We continue to grow our digital trade pro scheme with 17% growth in membership year on year and Do It For Me delivered sales up 5.8% with orders still in growth. We have delivered profits in the half as expected and we are on track with the productivity and efficiency plans that we shared with you at our prelims in March. Back in July, we announced new capital allocation policy, part of which was a share buyback programme, which is now very much underway. Overall, it's been a positive first half as we continue to successfully execute our plans and remain confident in delivering the full year in line with expectations. I'll now hand over to Mark, who will take you through the numbers in a little more detail. Thank you, David, and good morning, everybody. So, as David mentioned, it's been a good start to the year. Revenue has been up 0.7% on a like-for-like basis in a tough market, with core sales broadly flat and do-it-for-me sales up 5.8%. M...