Victoria makes a loss despite nearly doubling revenue

KIDDERMINSTER floorcovering firm Victoria has seen its revenue nearly double over a 12 month period but it has still made a loss.

Announcing its preliminary results for the year ending March 28 to the London Stock Exchange this morning, it revealed a revenue figure of £128.3m compared to £71.39m at the end of March last year.

But it made a loss before tax of £2.95m compared to a profit of £2.28m last year.

However, Victoria reports a profit before tax and exceptional items of £7.46m, the exceptional items incurring a cost of £9.92m.

Exceptional items include a non-cash charge of £7.55m relating to the Contract for Differences between the company and Camden Holdings.

Victoria’s level of debt has also increased markedly year on year, now sitting at £36.2m compared to £1.48m last year.

The group obtained £10m of unsecured long-term capital from the Business Growth Fund during the year.

Post year end it restructured its existing facilities and entered into a new multi-currency revolving facility with Barclays and HSBC, which it says provides it with substantial headroom for future growth.

Victoria says it has successfully integrated the acquired businesses in the year – Abingdon Flooring group and Whitestone Weavers group.

Both acquisitions have been materially earnings-enhancing and value-creating, it said.

The sales picture is a largely positive one for Victoria. UK sales were up 181.1% with operating margin improvement from 6.1% to 6.6% due to improved manufacturing efficiencies and continued focus on reducing the overhead cost base.
 
Australia faced considerable economic headwinds from a slowdown in mining and fall in commodity prices. Despite these factors, Australia sales and operating profit remained flat even after A$0.84m of additional occupancy costs from the sale and leaseback initiatives in late FY14.
 
Geoff Wilding, chairman of Victoria, said: “During 2015 Victoria’s financial position continued to improve. Our three recent acquisitions – Westex, Abingdon and Whitestone – have been materially earnings-enhancing and value-creating for shareholders.

“Operational synergies are already being achieved across the businesses and we expect the acquisitions to deliver additional operational efficiency improvements in future years.
 
“Our focus is on maximising the group’s return on capital employed. Operational management – all of whom are shareholders – are committed to carefully managing working capital to optimise free cash-flow while growing earnings, through providing enhanced products and services to customers.

“We believe this combined approach should ensure Victoria experiences above-average sector performance in the years ahead.
 
“There are good opportunities to continue to grow earnings in the UK and abroad via further carefully scrutinised, high quality acquisitions and organically via a committed sales focus and operational synergies.

“This is what we intend to deliver for shareholders in FY16.”
 

 

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