News

Lords, a leading distributor of building materials in the UK, announces its annual results for the year ended 31 December 2021 (‘FY21’ or the ‘period’).

¹Adjusted EBITDA is calculated in the consolidated statement of comprehensive income.
²Adjusted profit before tax (basic) is defined as profits before tax before amortisation of goodwill.
³Adjusted earnings per share is calculated in note 11.

Financial Highlights

• Strong performance across the Group, with all businesses demonstrating financial and operational progress
• Record revenues, increasing 26.3% to £363.3 million (FY: £287.6 million) driven by the Group’s enhanced customer proposition and continued deployment of strategic initiatives
• Like-for-like revenue grew by 18.1% and was 20.8% ahead of 2019 showing a swift rebound and acceleration post pandemic
• Strong Adjusted EBITDA up 40.1% to £22.3 million (FY20: £15.9 million restated)
• Adjusted EBITDA margin rising to 6.1% (FY20: 5.5% restated) as the Group remains focused on delivering further margin expansion across the business
• Adjusted earnings per share of 5.48 pence, up 58.4% (FY20: 3.46 pence)
• Maiden dividend declared of 1.89 pence per share reflecting the Group’s confidence in delivering consistent and growing shareholder returns
• Successful IPO with admission to AIM on 20 July 2021, raising gross proceeds of £52.0 million (£30.0 million for the Company and £22.0 million for existing shareholders)

Operational Highlights

• Customer and colleague satisfaction scores remain excellent, at 4.7 out of 5.0 in both instances, reflecting the Group focus on colleague engagement and customer service
• Further progress with our people, plant and premises organic growth strategy, including our digital platforms with all eight of our transactional websites developed and managed in-house
• Digital revenue grew 31% in FY21 and now represents 6.3% of Group revenue
• Good progress with sustainability programme, as Lords continues to reduce its environmental footprint, invest in its people, enhance the Group’s health and safety whilst supporting worthwhile projects in its communities

 Current Trading and Outlook

• Four acquisitions since year end, enhancing the Group’s geographical presence and offering scope for further growth through extended product ranges
• Robust pipeline of acquisition opportunities underpins the inorganic growth potential
• Confident in Lords ability to fulfil objective to be a £500.0 million revenue business by 2024 and to achieve a 1.5% increase in Adjusted EBITDA margin over the medium term
• Demand in (‘RMI’) sector focused product offering remain strong, Merchanting division has continued to deliver growth in line with management expectation
• Customer demand remained strong across Heating and Plumbing division (‘H&P’). However, APP Wholesale Limited affected by industry wide boiler supply constraints, impacting division’s revenues throughout Q1 2022
• The supply issues are expected to ease moving into H2 2022, and therefore the Group’s revenues continue to trade largely in line with market expectations and adjusted profit before tax is in line with expectations of approximately £16.0 million

Shanker Patel, CEO of Lords, commented: “We are delighted to report such a strong set of maiden full year results where Lords has delivered record revenue and earnings growth, and demonstrated our ability to deliver against our strategic and financial objectives set out at IPO.  First and foremost, I would like to thank our colleagues across the UK, who without their fantastic commitment and support for our vision, these results would not have been achieved.

“Due to the fragmented nature of the market in which we operate, Lords has a unique opportunity to deliver both organic and acquisitive growth and we are excited to successfully demonstrate this today.  As we build our size, reach and product range, we will be able to further enhance our excellent service to our customers and this underpins our exciting growth strategy.  Our industry has not been immune to the widespread challenges caused by price inflation and supply issues, the latter of which has recently affected the supply of boilers in our AAP business.  We have taken all the necessary steps to ensure that we continue to achieve our growth and profit forecasts and with the current boiler issue, where demand remains strong, we will take every possible action to protect the strength of our business.

“Progress in the new financial year has continued to be strong, our four new value accretive acquisitions are performing in line with our expectations and we look forward with confidence as we aim to deliver sustainable and growing returns to our shareholders.”

Analyst Briefing

There will be a conference call for analysts at 0930hrs today, which will be hosted by Shanker Patel (CEO) and Chris Day (CFO).  Please contact Buchanan at [email protected] if you would like to receive details.

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information pursuant to Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014 as it forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 as amended.  Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

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Notes to editors:

Lords is a specialist distributor of building, plumbing, heating and DIY goods.  The Group principally sells to local tradesmen, small to medium sized plumbing and heating merchants, construction companies and retails directly to the general public.

The Group operates through the following two divisions:

• Merchanting: supplies building materials and DIY goods through its network of merchant businesses and online platform capabilities.  It operates both in the 'light side' (building materials and timber) and 'heavy side' (civils and landscaping), through 30 locations in the UK.

• Heating and Plumbing: a specialist distributor in the UK of heating and plumbing products to a UK network of independent merchants, installers and the general public.  The division offers its customers an attractive proposition through a multi-channel offering.  The division operates over 15 locations enabling nationwide next day delivery service.

Lords was established over 35 years ago as a family business with its first retail unit in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire.  Since then, the Group has grown to a business operating from 45 sites.  Lords aims to become a £500 million turnover building materials distributor group by 2024 as it grows its national presence.

Lords was admitted to trading on AIM in July 2021 with the ticker LORD.L.  For additional information please visit www.lordsgrouptradingplc.co.uk.