Homeserve profits hit by £85m CRM write-off

Home maintenance giant Homeserve’s profits dropped by two-thirds for the year to March 31 after the firm decided to write off its UK CRM system at the cost of £84.8m.

The company made a surplus of £47.2m over the period, down from £137.9m last year. Revenues climbed by 15% to £1.3bn.

The company says it will ditch its CRM system and move to a cloud-based solution which has been proven elsewhere in the group.

Richard Harpin, founder and chief executive, said: “In the last year, our homes have become more important to us than ever and demand for our services continued to grow.

“Our North American Membership business was the stand out performer, growing customers to 4.7m, increasing policy retention by 2 percentage points to 85% and now covering 66 million utility partner households. In Home Experts, we are making excellent progress in matching consumers with trades, online and on demand, with our Directory Extra model.

“We see demand for high quality tradespeople continuing to grow, as more and more people seek to make their homes better and greener. We are well set up for continued strong growth.”