Marshalls bearish as timeline for housebuilding recovery malaise extends
Block paving and building materials specialist Marshalls have cautioned on a slow and elongated recovery this year on the back of a steep profit drop for 2023.
The firm today said that adjusted profit before tax came in at just £53.3m, a 41 per cent reduction on 2022’s figure of £90.4m, while adjusted operating profit dropped from £101.1m to £70.7m.
Total revenue fell seven per cent from £719.4m in 2022 to £671.2m in 2023, while adjusted earnings per share plummeted nearly 50 per cent year-on-year to 16.7 p from 31.3p.
There were significant drops in sales numbers across almost all segments of the business in 2023.
Landscape products fell by 53 per cent year-on-year to £21.3m and building products sagged 54 per cent.
Roofing materials proved the lone bright spot, with sales numbers climbing 31 per cent from £34.4m to £44.9m.
New Marshalls chief executive, Matt Pullen, who was appointed on March 1st of this year, said that 2023 was a year where the business tried to retain focus on stability, including the “rigorous and strong management of cashflow”.
The company has instituted around £11m in annual cost-cutting measures, including factory mothballing, shift slashes and business re-shuffling.
Pullen continued that in the short-term, he expected the market to “remain challenging, with continued weakness in the first half of the year,” giving way to a “slower and more modest” recovery towards the end of 2024 than the company had initially forecasted.
However, the signs of recovery in the UK’s broader housing market are beginning to shine through.
According to a report by Rightmove, the average price of newly marketed properties rose by £5,279 this month to £368k, the highest rise in house prices in 10 months.