Roofing group SIG issues a profit warning for 2015
Roofing group SIG has issued a profit warning, lowering its full-year guidance by 18 per cent on previous estimates.
The company, which specialises in insulation and energy management, said full year profit before tax would come in at around £85m to £90m for 2015.
Figures for 2016 are currently unchanged, pending a review on 16 November. SIG said the downgrade came about because of “deteriorating trading in Europe, particularly France, and softening demand in the UK drivers”.
September was the most challenging month of the year so far, although October was also difficult, the firm said.
“Overall like-for-like sales are flat (+0.2 per cent) in the first nine months of the year, having declined by 0.9 per cent in the third quarter,” SIG explained.
“More difficult markets have impacted the group’s gross margins, offsetting the progress made by the group’s procurement initiatives, where savings of around £15m have been achieved thus far.”
However, SIG noted that it was expecting to make £20m-worth of savings in the medium term, on top of the £30m savings to be made by 2016, which had been previously announced.
Further details will be revealed after the mid-November review. “One step forward two steps back,” SIG admitted. “Cleary today’s news will impact the share negatively.
Despite this, we continue to believe that there is much good work going on at SIG and further potential to improve the underlying operational efficiency of the business.”