Public sector projects drive sales at SIG

SHEFFIELD-based building specialist SIG said that it expects profts to be in line thanks to continued demand from the public sector.

The firm, which is Europe’s leading supplier of insulation, interiors, roofing and specialist construction products, said that sales for the year ended December 31 were £3m – up 24% on last year.

Like-for-like sales grew 6% in Sterling but showed a decline of around 1% in constant currency.

SIG said the it performance was achieves despite increasingly challenging trading conditions, which deteriorated further in the last half of 2008.

In November, it warned of “sharply declining” levels of building activity in residential and repairs, maintenance and improvement sectors.

The exception to this trend was the Miller Pattison operation, which retrofits thermal insulation in existing dwellings and which has continued to see strong demand growth resulting from the Government’s CERT scheme.

However, demand from the non-residential sector has continued representing more than 50% of sales.

“Here good levels of activity in the publicly funded and PFI sectors, in particular health and education infrastructure, helped to offset some slowdown in the second half in project work in the private sector,” SIG said.

The company said that it had been working hard to implement a range of operational measures designed to reduce working capital and improve cash generation.

As well as drastically cutting back the number of acquisitions (last year it made 25), it has increased the number of branch closures to 80 and made a head office headcount reduction of around 1,000 staff announced in November.

“SIG continues to monitor very closely developments across its spread of geographies and markets,” it said.

“SIG’s experienced and proven management team has a track record of outperforming in adverse conditions, and the Company is confident that it will strengthen its market position in the period ahead.”