JAMES HALSTEAD PLC
(the “Company”)
Trading Update
James Halstead plc, the commercial flooring manufacturer and international distributor, is providing the following trading update ahead of its interim results for the half year to 31 December 2025.
Sales for the first half of the year will see a small reduction in comparatives, as noted at the Annual General Meeting in December 2025, Central European and Asia Pacific markets remain challenging and have impacted on the overall total sales. UK sales remain robust and marginally up on last year despite the uncertain market conditions, and once again we have seen further growth in the North American and Middle Eastern markets. An uplift in sales to our South African distributor has also been pleasing.
As noted in the outlook of our Annual Report and Accounts to 30 June 2025, our conservative approach to customer credit has also been a factor in lower revenue across some markets, including the UK.
Looking ahead, the Company is confident that new and updated product ranges produced in the UK factories will see an uplift in revenue and there remains sufficient spare capacity at these factories for any significant uplift in volumes. The Expona Commercial collection in Germany has also been updated and relaunched with favourable reviews, and early sales into the market have been encouraging.
There have been changes in senior management in our APAC region, and we believe the greater focus on top line growth because of these changes will see an improvement in both revenue and profitability over the second half of the year in this region.
Consequent to the imposition of stricter credit limits, noted above, this not only affected revenue but profitability will also see a small reduction on comparatives for the first 6 months, though the Board remains positive for the second half of the year.
The Company has seen an increase in cash balances over the first half of the year, remains ungeared and continues to invest in our UK sites for the future.
The Company expects to announce its results for the half-year ended 31 December 2025 on 31 March 2026.