Wednesday 13 December 2023

Volution Group plc

AGM Trading Update for 4 months ended 30 November 2023

Strong start to FY 2024

Volution Group plc ("Volution" or "the Group" or "the Company", LSE: FAN), a leading international designer and manufacturer of energy efficient indoor air quality solutions, today announces an update on trading covering the four months which ended 30 November 2023.

Trading update

Revenue for the four months which ended 30 November 2023 was c. £121 million, up 8.0% versus the prior year.  Organic growth at constant currency was 2.9% and inorganic growth was 7.7%. The foreign exchange translation impact was 2.6% adverse.

All three geographic regions grew earnings in the period with the strongest performance coming from our UK residential activities. Both public and private refurbishment in the UK has been supported by greater customer awareness of indoor air quality, and resolution of mould and condensation issues. Across the Group over two-thirds of revenue is derived from the refurbishment market.  Despite the significant reduction in new build completions, this market benefits from regulatory drivers moving demand towards higher value energy efficient ventilation solutions.

Similar energy efficiency supportive trends have assisted us in other markets, notably decentralised heat recovery in the Netherlands and the move towards low energy consuming ceiling fans in Australia. Where our exposure is more weighted towards new build activity, notably in Germany and in our OEM activity, we have experienced weaker performance as higher interest and mortgage rates have led to subdued demand.

Gross and operating profit margins have improved compared to FY23 due to strong pricing discipline, an ongoing focus on our operational excellence programme, including material value engineering initiatives, and the introduction of new products.

Our recent acquisitions in France, Slovenia and New Zealand are progressing well.

Full year outlook ahead of expectations

Whilst new build market conditions remain challenging, our refurbishment activities continue to benefit from strong regulatory drivers and consumer focus on eliminating the damaging health impacts of mould and condensation in buildings. Our strong start to the financial year, together with the tailwind from the three acquisitions completed in the calendar year, gives the Board confidence in delivering earnings ahead of the current range of market expectations for the financial year¹.

-Ends-

Note:

1.    The Board believes current market forecasts for the year ending 31 July 2024 to be adjusted earnings per share in the range of 25.3p to 26.3p

For further information: 

Volution Group plc Legal Entity Identifier: 213800EPT84EQCDHO768.

Note to Editors:

Volution Group plc (LSE: FAN) is a leading international designer and manufacturer of energy efficient indoor air quality solutions.  Volution Group comprises 22 key brands across three regions:

UK: Vent-Axia, Manrose, Diffusion, National Ventilation, Airtech, Breathing Buildings, Torin-Sifan.

Continental Europe: Fresh, PAX, VoltAir, Kair, Air Connection, Rtek, inVENTer, Ventilair, ClimaRad, ERI Corporation, VMI, I-Vent.

Australasia: Simx, Ventair, Manrose, DVS.

For more information, please go to: www.volutiongroupplc.com

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements which are made in good faith and are based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as assumptions about future events. You can sometimes, but not always, identify these statements by the use of a date in the future or such words as "will", "anticipate", "estimate", "expect", "project", "intend", "plan", "should", "may", "assume" and other similar words. By their nature, forward-looking statements are inherently predictive and speculative and involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future performance and are subject to factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this document, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.