Going west the right strategy for HomeServe

WALSALL-based home maintenance business HomeServe now has as many customers in the US as it does in the UK.

And on the back of a surge in customer numbers on both sides of the Atlantic, the group says it expects to deliver good growth for the remainder of this year.

In a trading update for the period 1 April to 17 July ahead of today’s annual general meeting, the firm said it is trading in line with expectations and expects to see “good growth” in 2016.

“In line with the strategy which we have previously outlined, we continue to invest for customer growth across our international businesses and, as in prior years, the majority of marketing activity will be second half weighted,” it said.
 
“The UK business is performing as planned with continued good retention and marketing performance. As anticipated, we had 2.1m customers at the end of June 2015.
 
“In the USA, we continue to build the prospects pipeline and see good customer growth with a stable retention performance.  At the end of June 2015 we had 2.1m customers.
 
“In France, retention remains strong and sales activity with our new partner, Lyonnaise des Eaux, is performing as expected.  We intend to increase our marketing investment in the remainder of the first half of the year.

“Our businesses in Spain and Italy are performing in line with our plans.”  
 
HomeServe said that, subject to shareholder approval at today’s AGM, it expects to pay a special dividend of 30 pence per existing ordinary share on July 24. 

In May Homeserve announced it had increased its customer numbers by 800,000 in a year.

This led to a £16m hike in revenue and an increase in profitability.