Growth born in the USA for HomeServe
WALSALL-based home maintenance and emergency call-out group, HomeServe is continuing its expansion into the United States with the acquisition of new partnership agreements.
The affinity partnerships have been signed with Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, Severn Trent Services, Wyandotte Kansas City, North Myrtle Beach and North Fayette County.
The agreements add a further 0.8m households to HomeServe’s US network.
The company is hosting a Capital Markets event today for institutional investors and analysts during which chief executive Richard Harpin, alongside the senior management team of HomeServe and a number of its affiliated businesses, will discuss growth opportunities available in the US market.
The group expects its £52m acquisition of US utility group USP, announced in March, to complete following normal regulatory approvals.
Combining USP with its own business will mean the group can offer its products and services to 43m households.
“Given the progress to date and the strength of our new partner pipeline with negotiations at all stages of the process, in the long term we would anticipate having access to around 80m households in the USA via affinity relationships with a penetration level of around 10% and a net income per customer in the order of $100,” it said in a market update.
“We maintain our long term expectation of achieving a 20% margin in our US business, which would be achievable today if we scaled back the investment in growth.”
Elsewhere, the group confirmed that it continued to trade in line with previous guidance and said it was well positioned to meet the challenges posed by the UK’s exit from the EU.
“Our businesses each operate in their own territories and have proved resilient to economic turmoil. Indeed, given the significant contribution from our international businesses our reported profits would benefit from the translation effects of a decrease in the value of sterling,” it said.
