SIG plc (GB00BYX5K988.SG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this SIG Plc 2025 Full Year Trading Update and strategy framework. [Operator Instructions] I'm now going to hand over to Pim Vervaat. Pim, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning all to the call. My name is Pim Vervaat, and I've been the CEO and Chair Designate of SIG since the 1st of October last year. And with me is Ian Ashton, our Group CFO. Ian will take you through the trading statement, which we issued earlier this morning. After then, I will take the opportunity to update you on my initial observations about SIG Group and the strategic framework going forward. So Ian, over to you.

Thank you, Pim. Good morning, everybody. So we'll be issuing -- if we go to the next slide on the trading update. Thank you. We'll be issuing our full year results, as most of you will know, on the 4th of March, that we'll obviously get into the usual level of detail on numbers and outlook at that point. But today, I'll just talk very briefly on this one slide through the key numbers that we reported in the trading update earlier this morning. Sales for the year were flat on prior year overall, with volumes up 1% across the group and pricing offsetting that overall. And on the right-hand side, you can see the sales results by business and the H1-H2 split. The broad trends were pretty similar across all of the markets, i.e., demand remain very subdued throughout the year. Now we didn't see any uptick in H2. And frankly, there was, if anything, a slight further softening in the last quarter, certainly in the U.K., Germany and Ireland. More positively, our teams continue to perform well against the local markets, and we're very confident that we continue to take share in the vast majority. One specific point just to raise on here, and as mentioned on the slide, is that in Q4, we did decide to move the management structure we had in place supporting our U.K. specialist markets as well as some cost benefit, we believe the resulting changes in management accountabilities will allow us to better exploit the opportunities in these smaller specialist businesses, including, in fact, synergies across our own portfolio. I think it is worth mentioning, given the focus it often gets and has got over time, is that what we used to report as U.K. interiors until Q3, namely the Insulation and Drylining business continue to perform extremely well throughout the year. It's H1, H2 and full year growth numbers were respectively 8%, 3% and 5%, a very positive performance. So certainly, there's continued opportunity for more improvement, but the recovery of that business is well on track despite the market backdrop. Group profit was -- operating profit was GBP 7 million higher than the prior year at GBP 32 million and in line with market expectations. We took out more costs during 2025, nearly GBP 40 million before the impact of inflation and translational FX. And of course, that was key to hitting that profit number. Free cash flow was an outflow of GBP 12 million for the year. Given the depressed operating margin at present, we think that was a pretty solid result, helped by very encouraging progress on working capital initiatives. Balance sheet-wise, it means that year-end liquidity was healthy at just over GBP 170 million and leverage finished flat on the prior year end at 4.7x. Within that liquidity number is our GBP 90 million RCF, which to be clear, remained undrawn throughout the year. So in summary, for 2025, sales-wise, we outperformed our markets. Profit was in line with expectations, initiatives on cost and working capital delivered strong results and liquidity remained robust. And I'll now hand it back to Pim.

Thanks, Ian. If we move to the next slide. So first 100 days observations, no real surprises, I think. I've seen strong and experienced management across all businesses. I've been really impressed with the knowledge, the experience and indeed the commitment of the people I've met across SIG. And there's real resilience in trough trading conditions, taking painful measures. Another observation is that there is a diverse set of businesses within SIG. There's distribution businesses for Insulation and Drylining, roofing businesses in different countries. We've got manufacturing businesses, and we've got a number of niche businesses. Overall, I expect about circa 20 product market combinations within our group. Against that backdrop, we do have the right business operating model, decentralized, recognizing the diverse set of businesses we do have in the group. The fourth observation is no surprise. We have good market position in structural growth markets. Clearly, at this moment in time, we're at the bottom of the cycle, but it just shows the significant upside of the structural growth drivers coming through as well as the cycle improving. Ian alluded to it, we've achieved GBP 39 million of operating savings -- operating expense savings in 2025. The question is then, is there more self-help available? There is, and we'll allude to that a little bit later on. Another observation is that we actually are, as a group, in the early phase, I would say, of digitization and AI adoption that means upside going forward from my perspective. Where we do have an advantage like omnichannel, which you may have heard before in Poland, we've been able to roll that out to other countries. Final observation, there is value upside from simplifying the business portfolio with 20 product market combination. That leads me to the strategic framework, which is on the next slide. So strategic framework, we call it Vision 2030 has 2 key pillars. The first one, optimizing operating leverage is actually a continuation of the current strategy. We want to continue to take market share. And again, Ian already mentioned it, a special mention to the really good performance of our Insulation and Drylining business in the U.K. There is an ongoing review of the branch footprint, has been done in the past, will happen going forward. This is closing branches, but it's also opening some branches. There's still further cost efficiencies to be had, both at group as well as divisional overhead. And whilst we've been addressing procurement opportunities, I think there is some mileage to gain more upside. I mean the backdrop here is we have around GBP 2.5 billion of procurement spend every year. So you can imagine improvement there will make quite a big impact bottom line. To that effect, we've recruited an experienced Chief Procurement Officer, who is working with the community across the various divisions to create further upside. And indeed, we have had some initial savings already. We've already been focusing on working capital efficiency. And I think from a continued focus on working capital, there's going to be incremental further benefits. So all of that will lead to sales performance -- outperformance versus market, optimized cost base ahead of market recovery and indeed support further robust liquidity going forward. Perhaps the new element in all of this is the optimizing of the business portfolio. I've already said we have a diverse set of businesses. We are in the progress -- in progress to assess each product market combination to see what the best way to create value is going forward, 3- to 5-year view, both organically as well as inorganically. On the organic front, Ian already alluded to it, we've simplified the structure by removing the U.K. specialist market management structure. And we also closed a relatively small business in December called Mayplas. So there's organic opportunities, but we're also looking at inorganic opportunities where the value case is compelling. So that will lead to further value creation. We want to optimally align to structural long-term growth markets, and it will give an enhanced return profile with indeed a better leverage profile. So that's the strategic framework for 2030. We will allude to that in more depth when we announce the full year results early March. So what's our objective with this? And that's the next slide. We make a distinction here. Short, medium term, really '26 and '27, we're really focused on maintaining robust liquidity, take out cost, increase the working capital efficiency in preparation for market recovery. I think there's many views on when the market will recover, not if. And we're doing all the self-help that is possible. There's no sacred cows in terms of being prepared for when that happens. We're also aiming to get a focused business portfolio, as I said, aligned to growth markets and continuing to grow ahead of market. If you then look by 2030, we really want to be able to say we've created a best-in-class distribution platform in building materials. Perhaps interesting to note there is that our U.K. roofing business this year in September actually won the National Merchant of the U.K. award. So all of that, we aim to deliver 3% to 5% operating margins through the cycle, together with a robust and predictable cash flow generation. So no cash outflow, but cash inflows. Clearly, we will need '26, '27 to get to that level. We've been around 1.5%, 2% for the last 6, 7 years, but we believe that's eminently possible going forward. Is 5% the absolute upside? Well, we hope we can say and can update you in the future to say, well, actually, we can expand it further. But for the time being, we're saying 3% to 5% operating margin through the cycle should be achievable after we've done the '26, '27 further work. I think that is a very short summary of where we want to go. I think it's now time for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes in from Clyde at Peel Hunt.

A couple of questions, if I may. In terms of sort of extra optimization that you are talking about over the next couple of years, is there going to be a sort of a sizable cost to achieving those benefits? Or is this going to be a lot of sort of natural wastage, people retiring and you don't replace or is it going to be more of a bigger changes, I suppose? And the second is probably aimed at, Ian, around the working capital performances that you sort of flagged -- in terms of the 3 buckets, I suppose, to [indiscernible] think of in terms of stock, trade debtors, trade creditors, do you think one of those in particular, has got the most potential? Or do you think it's across all 3 of those categories where you can sort of make improvements?

I mean in terms of the additional optimization on particularly on cost and cost to your first question. I think it will be more of what we've seen over the last couple of years, Clyde. So there will definitely be I think we've got a very good return. We can -- we'll talk about a report in more detail in March, but a very good return over the last couple of years on the cash one-offs in terms of sort of annualized benefits. And we think there's still some more of that. Pim mentioned about some of the changes we made in [indiscernible] last quarter that there are further changes we can make at the divisional and corporate level and we'll continue to do that where we can. But as you allude to, there's also just good kind of hygiene, if you like, in managing costs vigorously, particularly headcount. We've talked quite a lot in the last year or 2 about managing our churn that you do get particularly at the branch level. And as long as there's demand [indiscernible] there's a bit more opportunity for that. Obviously, hopefully, demand will start to pick up before too long, and there'd opportunity for that sort of declined a little bit. But in short, I think it's more of the same. So some one-offs with cash cost related and others not. On working capital, I mean, we're obviously pleased with what we delivered in the year. We talked about it at the half year and some of the improvements there. Some of those are around improvements on timing of things that are long-standing things in the business -- rebates is obviously a feature of the business, focusing a bit more on as well as quantum but also timing of rebate and receipts, things like that. There was quite a lot of that, particularly in the first half of the year. I think our DSO and collections, our teams have done, frankly, a great job and there's always more you can do. But I think we've done a pretty good job there. So I think to answer your question directly, I think inventory is the one area -- leave aside other things, you can do around the balance sheet, I think inventory is the main thing that where we can continue to focus and we've done quite a lot in the last year or 2, but I think we can get even better data, better analysis, drive the teams hard, and incentivize people appropriately and make sure we'd end up getting the right balance between top line and profit, which is obviously critical, but with the right level of inventory.

And perhaps I'll add in here. I mean, procurement is clearly an area where we see upside both in working capital as trade debtors or particularly the supplier terms, as well as in savings and procurement of the savings do not out any one-off costs in that respect. So that's an area where, clearly, we've increased our resource, we increased focus within the business. So we aim to make significant progress on that.

I was going to ask actually on procurement because as analysts that have been sort of covering SIG for a while, I've seen procurement flagged a number of times as a possible target for making savings. Is there a secret sauce? Do you think that your business is not tapped into before in terms of being able to achieve those savings? Because obviously, you've been tried and ultimately, we're still in this position where you're talking about potential savings from procurement as have previous management teams as well.

No, It's not a new item in that. But I think it's the way we approached it. I mean we are not centralizing procurement. We're adding coordination across the group. I'm really delighted to been able to convince Darin Evans, our Chief Procurement Officer to join us. He has a well-storied reputation of delivering significant savings. And he will do that together with the procurement team throughout the businesses. And I think there have been a focus, clearly, as you say, previous management has not ignored it. But I still think there is an upside from refocusing or focusing more on this element. I mean, clearly, the next question is, okay, there's a GBP 2.5 billion procurement spend. What does that mean? What's the forward outlook? I think it could be sizable while we're in the progress of finding out in reality. And we have indeed identified a single-digit million savings opportunities in Q4. We will say more around this topic in early March.

Our next question comes from Aynsley of Investec. Aynsley, we can see you've unmuted, but I can't hear you. Can you please just check your microphone. Thank you. I think we must be having a technical problem from Aynsley. If you could please double check your microphone and then we'll try and come back for your question. [Operator Instructions] Aynsley you've come back in again, let's see if we can get you this time. If you can unmute and ask your question, please. No, unfortunately, I think we are still having a technical issue with you Aynsley. Unfortunately, we're not able to hear you at the moment. Maybe if you can please dial off and redial in and then we'll try and get back to you with your question. Our next one comes from Ben of RBC.

Pim, first one is for you. You mentioned some of the things that you're impressed by after 100 days, forgive me for asking, but is there anything that's been standout disappointing? And in that context, offers the most scope for self-help and to what extent can you fix those? I guess you've alluded to procurement already, but intrigued if there's anything else in there?

Well, I mean, to be honest, I think previous management put in the right structure, recruited the right people. I think this is continuing to really do the strategy as was done in the past in all fairness, I think procurement is the one area where I would say by refocusing putting more effort on it, I clearly can see upside. The previous strategy, which is our current strategy is a contribution of the previous GEMS strategy. That makes a lot of sense, I think as we have alluded to it. I think there's more working capital efficiencies, which can be targeted I think there is a further simplification of the business portfolio, which is a new element in that. I think it's always been on the radar screen somehow, but we're putting more focus on that. Now that we've done some of the really hard work in terms of improving the operating cost base. I think that's the new areas, which I would highlight. There is more self-help in continuing the GEMS strategy, but also in procurement, and we put resource to that effect. There is a second leg of the strategy, which wasn't part of the GEMS strategy. It may have been in the back graph, which is consciously looking at the 20 or so product market combination and really focusing on how can we create value from that? Because I mean, this is an industry, ultimately, which has been and will be consolidated and there's a good reason for that because there's a value upside from consolidating the industry. And we're looking at that by relevant component part of the group. And there is value to be created. I mean there's a number of businesses which are actively consolidating the industry and for good reasons because there is the value upside from doing exactly that. Now we won't be acquiring any businesses in '26 or indeed in '27 but we are evaluating, as I said in the presentation, how can we best create value of the component parts and of the core part of the group going forward. No sacred cows, looking at whatever we can do to create value. It needs to be a compelling case clearly.

Maybe I'll stick with you for now. One more just in terms of some of the wording, obviously, the ambition to build the best-in-class European distribution business, intrigued what that means in your view?

Well, what that means is that I mean, as I alluded to, we've had a business in the U.K. We have won the National Merchant of the Year award, and we did not sponsor the award. So it must be a real one in terms of being awarded that. So we've got good businesses, I think, across the patch. This industry is relatively low tech. And I believe I mentioned it early on, AI adoption. We're not going to be leading the charge as an industry, but we want -- we aim to be a fast follower. So I do think there's upside in the way we manage the business going forward using AI as a fast follower. I also think that where there are pockets where digitalization is quite good, there's other areas where we can improve. We need to do what we have done, and we need to move with the times. Now this is probably a very conservative industry. But if we can get ahead on that front competitively and take costs there, I mean broker-customer service and aid with further tools, the work capital management, and Ian alluded to stocks, I think that's clearly the aim to be ahead of the pack going forward. And yes, we're focusing '26, '27 on what we have to do within our current business environment and current tools. But whatever time and capital we have available towards that 2030 to become best-in-class, we will do. And I think there are significant mileage in that. If we move too fast ahead of where the market wants us to be, then it may be counterproductive, but there is an increased focus now on getting the best in class of digitalization as well as AI adoption over the coming years. And I think that's the way many distribution business will be going. We've done, as I said, early phase of adoption. I think we can do more. And within the constraints that SIG Group has, both financially and time commitment, that's where we'll focus upon.

Last one for Ian. Just -- obviously, you've come out with the margin target today as well. Intrigued if there's anything different in there in your thinking relative to before, obviously, 3% to 5%, maybe a bit on the building blocks of that and in turn, the sort of free cash flow breakeven if that's sort of the same thinking as before?

Yes. I mean so we've talked about 5% as a medium-term target for a little while now. And I think and we still believe, frankly, that we can and will get there, and we don't see that ultimately as a ceiling either. But I think when you're looking at a sort of 3-, 4-, 5-year strategy, when you're sitting at sort of a 1 and bit percent margin today, 3% to 5% is a more sensible way of looking at it through the cycle. 3%, I think it sounds more frankly, more credible, achievable to internally to you guys. We're absolutely confident we'll get to 3% in relatively short order, especially with a little bit of help from markets, and that 5% is very achievable. It just seemed to us, and frankly, once we get to 3% and beyond. As you know, we're then a sustainable positive free cash generation even absent any sort of upside in working capital. So that 3% has always been an important sort of metric. So I just think towards all of us, including Pim obviously, that was now a more sensible way of looking at it and articulating the medium-term goal.

Sorry, one quick just a follow-on to that. Do you think absence of sort of volumes that the 3% is achievable? Or I'm just trying to gauge the sort of level of self-help, I guess, in there? Or does that really require a....

In distribution, we need -- there's some growth needed at some point to sort of get to 3%. I think it would be -- we'd have to take a lot of cost out an awful lot with no sales growth to get to 3%. So the model, historically, like in any distribution is ultimately predicated on some growth. The last 2 or 3 years have been pretty exceptional in that regard given the drops in volumes, overall. So of course, we ultimately expect GDP growth plus some of the structural growth tailwinds that we talked about and that Pim mentioned earlier, to drive some reasonable volume growth. We don't need excessive sales growth to get to 3%, but a bit of growth. And we expect that to start some time before long.

And the creation of a more focused business portfolio could certainly help also achieving that target. As you know, there's going to be a wide variation in margins throughout our business portfolio. So optimizing our business portfolio will help achieve that target as well.

Apologies again to Aynsley that we weren't able to hear you earlier, but Aynsley has brought the questions through as types. So I'm going to read them out for you. There are 3. I'll do them one by one, so we can address them one at a time. First question is, is there much input cost inflation coming through? And is there more intention and confidence to capture some of this in pricing in 2026?

In this business, as always, there's quite a range of input increases. Broadly speaking, yes, there are input cost increases coming through. We've seen quite a lot coming through in January as normal. And I think net-net, sort of low single digits is kind of what we're seeing if you aggregate all the different products and markets. So it's low single-digit increases. And I think to the second part of the point, we certainly clearly are hoping that we are able to pass that through. And there will still be pricing pressure in the market. I think we saw sort of negative 1% overall across the group in 2025. As we said earlier, that I think flattish at the moment is our base assumption on pricing. So that's how we see input costs and pricing for the year.

Aynsley's second question was, does your simplification of the group include whole geographies? Are you assessing your big regions of France, Germany and the 2 divisions of the U.K. or likely to be smaller parts of the group?

There are -- every business is being assessed strategically.

And the third question from Aynsley is, does your slightly more cautious looking 3.5% margin target reflect the realities of the macro and market outlook as opposed to what you believe the group can structurally achieve over the medium term, given you have had a 5% margin target before?

So yes, it's 3% to 5%, just to be crystal clear. But yes, I think it does, in short. It reflects the fact that we're starting from where we're starting now after 2 years of very subdued demand but also with probably higher than normal OpEx inflation, for example. So just given where we're starting from, I think that's ultimately what that reflects. And as I said earlier, that we're just trying to put out a target there, which is achievable as opposed to 5 years, more like a couple of years, then it's just more realistic and I think a better articulation of how we see the margin through the cycle over time.

We have a raised hand from Charlie from Stifel.

The question was really just about procurement again. We have obviously seen this pursued in the past. I didn't catch the name of the individual who's becoming procurement?

Darin Evans.

Yes, and is he from a construction background, a building products background?

No. He has been with -- when I was CEO at RBC Group plc, he was a Chief Procurement Officer there, then went on with the successor company at Berry Global, where he was responsible. I think for the global procurement of polymer in particular, which I think was $11 billion, $12 billion of procurement spend. So it is a fresh pair of eyes to the industry, but a very experienced procurement professional.

Maybe just a word for me because procurement has come up 2x or 3x. And I think it's worth, say, firstly, Pim obviously knows Darin well and rates in extremely highly. And frankly, he's been in the business now for 3 or 4 months. He's a very, very smart guy. He's already making an impact. So I think it's a very, very strong high for the group. So just speaking of somebody who didn't know him until sort of October time, and I think the broader picture on a couple of people alluded to, well, procurement has been tried before. And I think we, as a Board and a management team, and now including Pim, are very aware of some of the missteps made before in terms of sort of overcentralization and that, that hasn't worked. We're very conscious of that. And the model, as Pim described, is very much that Darin will be working with the opcos. And I think speaking personally, it's always something I thought that we could and should do more on and that this model is the right model. So yes, Pim's come in and sort of thinks the same way, but I think there is opportunity there. I think our operating businesses have done a good job in procurement over the last few years. But I think you can always do more, and we can sort of, in some respects, professionalize and improve the way that we do certain things. And so there are -- there is opportunities there and Darin will -- is already getting after it.

Continuing on with the procurement conversation. Stephen Rawlinson from Applied Value has brought in a question here, what percentage of sales are accounted for by your top 5 suppliers? Have you had recent discussions with them about your new plans? What is the target annual benefit?

Yes. So it's a pretty significant percentage and rather than me throw out a number of the top 5 because we often talk about sort of top 10, but it's a big number. I mean it's 60%, 70%, but we can sort of clarify that mainly when you speak to in March. But it's a big percentage of the group with the top 5, certainly 10 suppliers as you know, and then a sort of a longer tail, very different to the customer profile. So we have, I think, around the group, there are obviously critical relationships all of the managing directors and their key people have focused very heavily on building and improving their relationships. We've -- we did hold a meeting last year. We had a sort of supply forum last year, we're repeating that this year where we get sort of supplies together to sort of explain what we're doing as a group. So they are -- and they are aware of where we are in terms of -- from a profitability point of view. So I think we have very good relationships. We understand the criticality of the supplier relationships. And I think they understand the value that we bring to the supply chain ourselves as well.

Yes. So I think that's -- well, as I said, because we're doing a coordinated approach to together with the opcos, it's incremental savings, and we will give clarity as to where we think we were going to end up in terms of a range. I think in March, we'll give a more precise range and indeed as to how we go about it.

Thank you for all your questions, everyone. Pim, I'll hand you back to wrap up.

Okay. Well, thank you all for attending this call and for the Q&A. Thank you very much. See you in March.