Welcome to the Lords Group Trading PLC 2025 AGM. Throughout this recorded meeting, attendees will be in listen-only mode. Questions can be submitted at any time by the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply just type in your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. I'd now like to hand you over to Gary O'Brien, Chairman of the Lords Board. Good afternoon, sir.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon to you as well, and welcome to the 2025 Annual General Meeting for the Lords Group Trading. My name is Gary O'Brien, as I've just been introduced, and I'm the Chairman of the company, and I'll also be Chairman for this meeting today. Thank you, everyone, for attending, both in person and in the Investor Meet Company platform. We have at least two members present in person or by proxy, so I therefore can declare that quorum is present. For this morning's—or not this morning, this afternoon's AGM, I have in the room with me Shanker Patel, sitting on the leader right, who's the Chief Executive Officer for the Group; Stuart Kilpatrick, sitting on my left, Chief Financial Officer. Then either end of the table, we've got Andrew Harrison, Independent Non-Executive Director, and Sheena Mackay, also Independent Non-Executive Director.
Right, just a bit of housekeeping for everybody in the room. Can we all make sure we've got our phones switched to silent, if you don't mind? If there is a fire, run like hell over to the nearest exit or follow instructions given by any fire marshals that may be around. Now, before we turn to the formal business of the meeting, I'd like to draw the meeting's attention to the trading update that was released this morning at 7:00 A.M. Not everybody may have seen it, may not have read it, so therefore I'm going to read it out aloud. Bear with me, it's a little bit longer than our normal trading session in previous years. Since our fiscal 2024 annual results announced on the 8th of May 2025, trading has continued in line with management's expectations.
In plumbing and heating, as previously communicated, boiler volumes were pulled forward into the first quarter of the current year prior to an industry-wide price increase, which was implemented in April 2025, with volumes in the two months subsequent being resultantly lower. Merchanting volumes, which were 11% ahead in the first quarter, continue to trend positively against the prior year despite market conditions remaining challenging and new branch openings in Bristow, Maidstone, and Mansfield, and are contributing more strongly than we had anticipated during the startup phase. On June 6, 2025, we acquired the trade and assets of CMO Group Limited, the U.K.'s largest online retailer of construction products. The acquisition brings together Lords' infrastructure and merchandising expertise with CMO's digital-first online model and accelerates the Group's digital offering to the construction materials and plumbing and heating markets.
The Group continues to focus on growth, margin accretion, and cost control. Three branch openings, two strategic acquisitions since October 2024, and a significantly stronger balance sheet after the property sale and leaseback, which we announced in April 2025, have positioned the Group well for any subsequent improvements in the RMI market. The recent addition of nine online CMO superstores broadens our offering to customers while maintaining our focus on excellent customer service. Performance to date has been as expected, and although the seasonally significant trading period lies ahead, the Board is confident that the Group is on track to meet its expectations for fiscal 2025. That ends the announcement that was published. You'll be able to see that both on our website and also on the company's London Stock Exchange page if you haven't received a copy.
Now, as Shanker and Stuart gave a thorough presentation of the company's preliminary results on the 8th of May on the Investor Meet Company platform, we do not intend to actually do a presentation today. If anybody did not pick up on that presentation, that is available to view on the Investor Meet Company platform, so you can go back and review it. Right, we will soon move to conducting the formal business of the AGM. Following this, the directors will be available for any questions that you may have, taking questions from the audience and also any of those submitted online. Shareholders were given the opportunity to submit questions in advance of the AGM, and questions can also be submitted to our team at any time during the meeting. As you will see from the Investor Meet Company platform, there is a Q&A function which you will be able to click onto.
That'll be explained to you later on in the meeting. Right, thank you. I propose that we now proceed to the formal business of the meeting. Right, the notice convening today's annual general meeting, setting out the resolutions to be proposed and explanatory notes, was posted to all shareholders on the 27th of May. Accordingly, the requisite notice of the meeting has been given. I propose, therefore, that with your consent, the notice of the meeting should be taken as read. All agreed?
Yes.
Thank you. Voting. For this meeting, in accordance with best practice, all resolutions will be voted on a poll. I am directing that the votes will be conducted on the poll in accordance with my right to do so under Article 19.8 of the Company's Articles of Association. Poll cards were provided on arrival to those eligible to vote. I will cast the proxy votes held by me in the poll. If shareholders are present today and also appoint me as a proxy, then they do not need to do anything. If you do wish to change a vote, then you can do it through the poll, in which case the votes you are already submitting will be deducted from the proxy votes. I am appointing the company's registrar, MUFG Corporate Markets, as scrutineers. Ordinary resolutions require a simple majority. Special resolutions require 75% or more to pass.
I will now go through and present the resolutions as they were presented in the notice. I should also note that I'm holding proxy votes in favor for each resolution in excess of 94%. Right, so Resolution One, the Annual Report of Accounts for the year ending 31st of December 2024, have been circulated to shareholders together with the auditor's report later on. I would now like to propose the passing of the first resolution, which is proposed as an ordinary resolution to receive the Annual Report of Accounts of the company for the financial year ended 31st of December 2024, together with the director's report and auditor's report on those accounts. Resolution Two, again an ordinary resolution, is to declare a final dividend of GBP 0.52 per ordinary share for the financial year ended 31st of December 2024.
This will be paid on the 4th of July 2025 to the ordinary shareholders on the company's registrar of members at the close of business on the 30th of May 2025. Resolution Three, an ordinary resolution, is to re-elect Andrew Harrison as the director of the company. Resolution Four is to re-elect Stuart Kilpatrick as the director of the company. Resolution Five is to re-elect Sheena as the director of the company. Resolution Six, I will have to pass to Shanker because it affects me.
I propose the passing of Resolution Six, which is being proposed as an ordinary resolution to re-elect Gary O'Brien as director of the company. Hand it back to you.
Thank you.
In particular, I'll do the reciprocal. I now propose that we should re-elect Shanker Patel as the director of the company as Resolution Seven. Resolution Eight, again, is an ordinary resolution, is to reappoint RSM UK Audit LLP as an auditor of the company to hold office until the conclusion of the next general meeting at which accounts are labeled for the company. Resolution Nine, ordinary resolution on the same day, is to authorize the directors to determine the fees payable to the auditor. Resolution Ten is an ordinary resolution, and that's that the directors be authorized to allot equity securities within the limits set out in Resolution Ten.
Resolution Eleven, which is our first special resolution, is that subject to Resolution Ten, the directors be authorized to allot equity securities for cash as if Section 561 of the Companies Act 2006 did not apply within the limits set out in Resolution Eleven. Resolution Twelve, again, is a special resolution that's subject to Resolution Ten, and in addition to Resolution Eleven, the directors be authorized to allot equity securities for cash as if Section 561 of the Companies Act 2006 did not apply within the limits set out in Resolution Twelve. Now, I've now proposed all the resolutions as set out in the notice, and I declare the poll open. If so, please complete any poll cards and tick the appropriate boxes in the seat resolution, and these will be collected by the company registrars. From that point of view, all done. Okay.
Am I going to get notice of that, or it's just approved?
It is approved.
Okay. Thank you very much. The actual polls counted will actually be issued as an RNS later today or even tomorrow, hopefully. Everybody will see what the actual voting for the meeting was. Unfortunately, this concludes the formal business of the meeting. I'm sure everybody's unhappy about that. I will now hand back to Investment Company's host to assist us with the Q&A session. If I can pass it back.
Fantastic. Gary, thank you very much indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just using the Q&A tab situated in the right-hand corner of the screen. As we articulated earlier, the company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted there and we'll publish responses where appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet Company platform. I'd also like to remind you the recording of today's meeting along with the Q&A will be accessed via your investor dashboard. If I may hand back to you, Gary. Shanker, if there's any questions that you've got there, if you can just read those out and give a response and I'll pick up from you at the end.
Yeah, thank you very much. There are several questions here, and obviously, I'll pass them to Shanker or Stuart if it's appropriate. The first one I think I'd like to take is in respect of CMO. What are the integration plans? As I announced in the statement that I read a minute ago, we've acquired the assets of CMO. What are the integration plans and what is the projected net profit? Will goods be distributed via existing outlets? This is just a general inquiry as to how CMO is going to be integrated and operated. Shanker, can I throw that to you?
Yes. In terms of the integration plans, CMO will act as an independent division within our group, supported by our merchanting and plumbing and heating divisions because there is a supply and product overlap between how CMO sells its products and how our offline businesses sell their products. The business will be integrated in terms of group policies, in terms of being part of our group culture. We see a very strong alignment in how CMO has built its business. It has a very strong employee-first culture, very similar to ours. Integrating the two teams in terms of collaboration, we foresee will be a much easier route than sometimes can be when you acquire businesses.
In terms of the projected net profit, I think at this moment in time, it would be too early to make a statement except for the fact that clearly the business is in need of a degree of transformation, which we are working on at pace, and we have a plan to do so. A lot of that will involve making CMO grow once again, and again, that will occur because of its ability to leverage the group's strengths, particularly with suppliers and also with any kind of working capital constraint that they may have been operating under over the last six months. Goods being distributed via the existing Lords Network, possibly, but at the end of the day, the business is an online digital business, and we intend to respect that. That is part of our strategy, is to ensure that we have a strong digital capability within our business.
Its premise, our acquisition of CMO, is not based on the fact that distribution will occur solely out of Lords outlets. CMO has an excellent model, and we intend to grow and enhance that model and to make it work financially more rewarding than it might have been in the past.
Okay. Thank you, Shanker. Quite a specific question here. As we announced in the AGM statement, there have been three organic store openings, Bristow, Maidstone, and Mansfield. This one asks, can you come back down? Oh, no, that's okay. How much has Maidstone added beyond expectations? It's quite specific. Oh, I think there's a question mark. Who's going to answer this one? Stuart, you haven't answered it, so why don't you?
Thank you, Gary. Yeah, Maidstone is doing better than its business plan at the top line level. It's strong double digits ahead of where we expect it to be by the end of May, so long may that continue.
Okay. Next one, this is definitely going to be for you, Stuart, which is what is the net profit projections for 2025? I guess that means for the group, but I presume you're going to defer people to market, but I'll let you answer.
Yeah, there are obviously market expectations with our brokers. As a group, obviously, we don't make profit projections or forecasts, and we're not really allowed to. Obviously, there are broker's estimates of our outcome for 2025.
Okay. Another question is, any current acquisitions in the pipeline? Shanker?
The group.
If you answer that, we might have to smack your fingers.
The group has a very clear strategy. In terms of acquisitions, it's very clear that it's part of our strategy. With the recent acquisition of CMO, one can deduce from that where we will be in terms of any kind of pipeline of opportunities. We're always seeking opportunities.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is part of our strategy, as Shanker said. Obviously, if anything does come along, it's something that will be announced to the market in due course. We're always looking at anyone's offering. Please talk to us.
Actually, we're always being approached.
Yeah, that's true.
More than we are looking.
Yeah, very true.
Okay. Now, I don't think, unless there's any other questions from the room, there are any other questions that we need to be addressing.
Just say well done on your delving into having fully recyclable paper, which I asked about last year. You have followed that through, and you have achieved the highest level of environmental accreditation. Secondly, can I ask, you do quite a bit of work in the communities, etc.? I noticed from the Annual Report, you obviously transmit that to all your staff, so they know what you are doing. It is always good to work for a company who appears to do good things in the community and enables staff within that organization to maybe get involved.
Can I throw that one to Shanker?
Absolutely.
Because actually, it takes a very keen interest on local involvement. It's part of your philosophy, really, isn't it?
Yeah, it's a big part of our values, and you think it's just giving back to the community in the areas that we trade. That giving back actually occurs through our colleagues. The ecosystem is that it's a colleague-led giving back into the community program. We do have an ESG and charity manager who assists with that, with either inquiring locally which are the good community projects to support. Quite often, in fact, more often than not, almost 80% of our initiatives comes from colleagues who say, "We would like to support X. We would like to support Y." Would the foundation be able to provide that support? Of course, we have a strict grant-making policy, with checks and balances. All of that is supported not just through an ESG manager.
There's a group of trustees who are all from within the BIP, so mostly all from within the business, alongside the fact that I will set aside about three to four days in a year to go and visit some of these initiatives. Most recent one was in Glasgow, where we supported a local hospice. It's been very popular in this particular town. It's not a well-to-do town. The hospice is one of the centers of the community. I went to visit and very, very pleased to have been able to support. It is a very well-thought-through strategic approach to giving back to our community, which is a big part of our value system.
That's transmitted through to all your staff, is it? Your ethical policies?
Yeah. Yeah. All the staff know about it. There's also an in-house communication system. It's WorkView, I think it's called.
WorkView is our in-house communication platform.
Yeah. Where staff can put on what they're doing, and it's actually used very openly, showing what they've been involved in. It's not just for charitable things. It's for anything and everything. It is very well communicated throughout the group.
Okay. Okay. In which case?
You've got one more question.
Oh, sorry.
I shouldn't have talked so long, should I?
Okay. The SPRI has been excellent. Analyst Medium guessed that share price. Target 67. It's just reasonable.
I'm not sure I should pass that to anybody, actually. It has been excellent. We're very pleased to see it. Let's hope it continues. That's probably the best thing to see. Yeah. Thank you for everybody for your attention to the day. If there's no other questions, I'm just looking to make sure there isn't. There isn't. I will bring the meeting to a formal close and pass back to our host.
Fantastic. Thank you indeed, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the attendees for attending today. Can I please ask attendees not to close the session? It should now automatically be redirected to provide your feedback in order that the board can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and those are greatly valued by the company.
On behalf of the Board of Lords Group Trading, we'd like to thank you for attending today's Annual General Meeting, and good afternoon to you.