City briefs: DFS; Clipper Logistics; and more
Doncaster-based furniture retailer DFS is to close all “non essential” retail stores and operations.
The Group confirms it has temporarily shut all of its showrooms, manufacturing and distribution operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain. Group websites will continue to operate to take customer orders.
The listed company explains: “In addition to showroom and manufacturing facilities temporarily shutting down, we are also suspending deliveries to protect our people and our customers.
“During this period, with support from the UK Government’s Coronavirus job retention scheme, we intend to maintain employment for our colleagues for as long as possible. Our people are our most valuable asset and we stand by them at this unprecedented time.
“With over 50 years of heritage, DFS is a successful business and a leading provider of living room furniture in the United Kingdom.
“The Group is historically a strong, profitable and cash generative business, that enjoys a strong market position. We are confident we can navigate this crisis and come back stronger when the economy recovers.”
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Leeds-headquartered Clipper Logistics says it has received “notable additional requests” from grocery-related customers to provide supply chain support to their infrastructure due to demands caused by COVID-19.
This includes warehousing, cross-dock, picking and transportation. Clipper says it is now actively engaging with all major food retailers to provide support services.
The company is expecting net debt at its 30 April 2020 year end to be c.£42m, slightly more than 1x EBITDA (pre-IFRS16 adjustments).
It would therefore have headroom of over £30m in its banking facilities, and very substantial headroom against its net debt covenant of 2.5x EBITDA.
Clipper is owed £29m from its open book customers in respect of capital expenditure funded on their behalf and due to be repaid over the balance of their contracts.
Steve Parkin, executive chairman of Clipper, said: “These are unprecedented times for retailers struggling to cope with panic buying throughout the UK and Europe.
“Clipper is working tirelessly to fulfil gaps in the supply chain and to help its clients meet significant increased demand for a wide range of products.
“The company will continue to provide support through utilising and mobilising its Europe-wide sites, personnel and fleet thereby alleviating significant supply chain pressure which benefits retailers and consumers alike.
“This whilst ensuring the utmost health and safety of our employees.”
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Sheffield-based listed software company WANdisco has announced a significant contract win.
In the next few weeks it expects to enter full public availability with its embedded Fusion Resource Provider (“FRP”) product with Microsoft.
As a result, the company has won a contract, worth $1m (£845,430) with a division of one of the world’s largest media and telecommunications companies.
David Richards, CEO and chairman of WANdisco, said: “Despite the ongoing restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, our customers continue to see the underlying imperative of moving data to the cloud.
“The advantages this brings of both cloud economics and the ability to run sophisticated machine learning applications is proving extremely valuable to the many organisations working in difficult, distributed and remote settings at this time.
“I am pleased to see our product initiatives continue to progress as planned and look forward to entering public preview with our embedded product which will usher in a new phase of our company growth.
“Our workforce has settled into the new normal of working remotely and I’m extremely proud that productivity levels remain as high as ever.”
The Group notes its balance sheet remains strong following its successful $16.5m (£14m) equity fundraise in November 2019, enabling the Group to withstand near-term uncertainty.
It says the current demand environment remains robust, while its partner pipeline continues to grow.
