Travis Perkins to ‘Pause’ Sale of Heating and Plumbing Division
The Travis Perkins Group, which own City Plumbing Supplies and other plumbing and heating businesses, has announced that it is pausing the sale of its heating and plumbing division. On 22nd October the Travis Perkins Group published its Q3 trading update stating that it was pausing the sale due to the “current unprecedented level of uncertainty”.
This "unprecedented level of uncertainty" is likely to be related to the UK's impending exit from the EU and the government's ongoing struggles to finalise an agreement with the EU.
In December 2018 Travis Perkins revealed that it was planning to sell its plumbing and heating division including plumbing and heating arm includes merchants City Plumbing Supplies, PTS, DHS, the Underfloor Heating Store, National Shower Spares, and Primaflow F&P. The news was published in a capital markets update in which it said the aim was to focus on “simplifying the business to reduce complexity, speed up decision making and improve agility while further reducing the above-branch and distribution cost base.”
The sales was intended to “facilitate more focused management attention and capital deployment on the higher returning areas, and creates further opportunities to simplify the group and reduce costs."
Specifically, one of these higher returning areas was the DIY-chain Wickes which Travis Perkins wants to demerge from the rest of the business. Wickes' strong performance has continued to grow in Q3 with further market share gains in the home improvement market by increasing lead generation through digital channels and increasing installation services. The demerger of Wickes is predicted to be complete in Q2 2020.
