City briefs: Portmeirion; Hill & Smith
Portmeirion Group, the homewares firm which makes and sells products under the Portmeirion, Spode, Royal Worcester, Pimpernel, Wax Lyrical and Nambé brands, says it has made an “excellent” start to the year.
Sales for the first four months of the year (to 30 April) have increased by more than 50% on the same period in 2020. On a like-for-like basis, sales for this period are slightly ahead of pre-Covid levels achieved in the same period in 2019.
Mike Raybould, chief executive, said: “Despite some ongoing Covid-related disruptions to our sales markets and supply chains in the first part of 2021, we are delighted to see the benefits of continued sales momentum and of our strategic programmes starting to feed through to our trading.
“Our sales are traditionally weighted seasonally to the second half. However we are pleased to see our strong finish to 2020 continue through to the start of 2021. We have developed a pipeline of exciting new products that launch during 2021 which, together with our ongoing investments behind our digital infrastructure and operational capabilities, means we are confident about the opportunities to grow our brands around the world.”
Engineering group Hill & Smith says it has made a “good” start to the year with reported revenue for the period 10% ahead of last year and ahead of 2019 levels.
The firm says it expects to see a good recovery in trading in 2021 and while mindful of foreign exchange movements, expectations for the full year remain unchanged.
Paul Simmons, group chief executive said: “The group has made an encouraging start to the year and we expect a good recovery in trading through 2021. We are moving ahead with our plans to create a higher quality business and the announced closure of VMS and acquisition of Prolectric demonstrate this. Our end markets are supported by strong macro drivers that give us confidence in the group’s long-term prospects.”
