Wall and floor tile chain Topps Tiles has seen sales jump in the past few weeks.
The core chain saw like for like sales rise by 6.2% in the seven weeks of its second half. Group turnover was 9.5% higher, compared with a 4.1% increase in the 26 weeks to 29 March.
A pre-tax loss of £1.5m became a profit of £1.9m, despite losses at the CTD chain, which has yet to be fully integrated into the group because of the CMA investigation into local competition. Topps says CTD will break even by the fourth quarter.
‘I am pleased with the progress we have made over the first half, which has included an improving sales trend, offsetting the majority of our inflationary cost pressures, and continuing to deliver our strategy; while also delivering a small increase in underlying profitability,’ says Rob Parker, Topps Tiles outgoing chief executive.
‘We have recently announced the conclusion of the CMA investigation into our acquisition of CTD, which will form a major part of the business-to-business element of our growth strategy moving forwards.
‘As we look forward to the second half, current trading shows a strong improvement in both our market leading omni-channel business, Topps Tiles, and also in the newer parts of the group; and we have a clear plan to move CTD into profitability by the final quarter of our financial year and into growth beyond that. As a result, we expect our full year profits to show a meaningful improvement over the prior year.’
