NWF Group plc
Final results to 31 May 2023
NWF GROUP PLC
Group overview
Leadership team
An experienced and capable team - succession planned
Richard Whiting
Chief Executive
Succession
- Retiring from NWF (aged 60) in March 2024
- Fifteen-yeartenure at NWF Group plc as Chief Executive delivering a significant sustained increase in returns for shareholders
Skills and experience
- Considerable leadership and strategic experience in a number of manufacturing and specialist distribution businesses in the building products and consumer products sectors
- Significant experience at board level with over seventeen years' experience in fully listed and AIM businesses
- Broad experience including CFO of a FTSE Small Cap listed business and operating at a senior level in sales and marketing roles in a FTSE 100 building products group
Chris Belsham
Chief Executive designate
Succession
- In line with the Board succession plans, will be appointed CEO in March 2024
Skills and experience
- Considerable strategic and leadership experience at both NWF Group and as Head of Corporate Finance and Equity Partner at Irwin Mitchell LLP
-
Extensive M&A, valuation and financing expertise across a range of sectors following fourteen years as a corporate finance adviser with KPMG with a focus
on listed clients - Qualified Chartered Accountant and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales having qualified with PwC in 1999
Katie Shortland joins as CFO in October 2023
- Experienced finance and business leader in infrastructure, engineering and manufacturing (Midland Expressway, Meggitt plc and Rolls Royce plc)
NWF GROUP PLC | 2 |
FINAL RESULTS TO 31 MAY 2023 |
Group overview
Key highlights
NWF is a specialist distributor of fuel, food and feed across the UK
Summary
• Strong track record of delivering |
increased shareholder returns |
• Group operates in large stable |
markets |
Fuels | Food | Feeds |
Supplying fuel to | The leading North West | Delivering nutritional |
commercial and domestic | ambient grocery | advice and feed to |
customers across the UK | consolidator | ruminant farmers across |
the UK |
• Strongly cash generative with |
dividend growth |
• Clear growth strategy |
• Surpassed £1 billion revenue for |
the first time |
• Focus on delivering the skills for |
our workforce |
- Third largest oil distributor in the UK
- 636 million litres delivered in 2023
- Road diesel, gas oil, heating oil and petrol
- 27 depots across the UK
- 155 tankers delivering fuel
- 100,000 customers, both commercial and domestic
- Seven acquisitions since 2019 in a fragmented market
- Boughey Distribution is a leading consolidator of ambient grocery products
-
Over 1 million ft2 of modern, racked warehousing
in Cheshire - 122,000 pallet spaces utilised
- 144 trucks and 320 trailers
- 131 contracted ambient grocery customers
- Second largest national ruminant feed supplier - feeds one in six dairy cows
- Feed mills in Cumbria, Cheshire and Devon
- 514,000 tonnes sold in 2023
- 4,132 farming customers
- 39 trucks and 17 trailers
- Primarily dairy, also beef and sheep
NWF GROUP PLC | 3 |
FINAL RESULTS TO 31 MAY 2023 |
Group overview
Results summary
Strong results, significantly ahead of initial market expectations*
Revenue | Headline operating profit¹ | |||
£1,053.9m | £21.0m | |||
+20.0% | -3.7% | |||
23 | £1,053.9m | 23 | ||
22 | £878.6m | 22 | ||
21 | £675.6m | 21 | £12.9m | |
Headline EBITDA¹ | Net cash/(debt) | |||
£25.8m | £16.3m | |||
-3.0% | ||||
23 | £25.8m | 23 | ||
22 | £26.6m | 22 | £9.0m | |
21 | £17.8m | 21 | £(5.7)m |
Headline profit before tax¹
£19.6m
-6.2%
£21.0m | 23 | £19.6m |
£21.8m | 22 | £20.9m |
21 | £11.9m |
Dividend per share
7.8p
+4.0%
£16.3m | 23 | 7.8p |
22 | 7.5p | |
21 | 7.2p |
* Analyst consensus headline PBT at the start of the year was £11.9 million.
1 Stated before exceptional items, amortisation of acquired intangibles and the net finance cost of the Group's defined benefit pension scheme and the tax effect thereon where relevant.
NWF GROUP PLC | 4 |
FINAL RESULTS TO 31 MAY 2023 |
Fuels
Operating highlights
Fuels
Resilient performance
- Very resilient performance in tough market conditions
- Oil supply issues in the autumn/winter period: UK removed Russian sourced oil
- Trunked oil across the country, benefitting from national supply agreements
- Mild winter: lower demand for heating oil and consumers reduced usage in the cost-of-living crisis
- Managed highly volatile oil costs over the period:
- Brent Crude moved from $124 per barrel to $74 per barrel
- Heating Oil Platts price fell from 98p per litre to 46p per litre
- Heating oil remained a lower cost source of home heating throughout 2023
- Two acquisitions in the last 12 months in Oxfordshire and Kent adding 39 million litres per annum
Revenue
£757.2m
+21.9%
23757.2
- 621.1
- 447.8
Operating profit
£12.9m
-25.0%
2312.9
- 17.2
- 9.3
Volume (litres)
636.0m
-4.1%
23636
22663
21695
NWF GROUP PLC | 5 |
FINAL RESULTS TO 31 MAY 2023 |

