Good morning, and welcome to Headlam's 2025 Full Year Results Presentation. My name is Stephen Bird, Interim Executive Chair, and I'm pleased to be joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Adam Phillips. I will begin by providing a brief introduction to the new core customer strategy that complements the transformation plan that is already making significant progress. I will then provide an update on the leadership team that will be taking the company forward in the next stage of its journey. Before handing over to Adam to take you through the 2025 financial performance, I will then provide details around the revised strategy and why we have confidence in returning this business to profit alongside a significantly strengthened balance sheet in 2027. I will then conclude with the near-term outlook. Following this, we would be happy to take questions.
Over the course of 2025, Headlam has made solid strategic progress, culminating in the implementation of a new multi-year core customer strategy in November. This strategy is designed to transform the business and enhance the quality of earnings through a disciplined focus on core independent retailers and contractors with a move away from large, low margin customers that require significant resources to serve. The strategy focuses on profitable revenue as opposed to volumes, our cost base, customer service, a simplified range, and the optimization of cash, and utilizes many of the initiatives already underway through the transformation plan introduced at the end of 2024. A combination of the new core customer strategy and the ongoing success of the transformation plan creates a strong platform for a return to sustainable, profitable growth.
While the timing of a broader market recovery remains uncertain, and with market conditions currently difficult, exacerbated by the conflict in the Middle East, we have entered into 2026 with a clear disciplined plan and a firm commitment to delivering meaningful value over the medium term. To deliver this strategy, the group has reinforced its leadership with two new experienced leaders in this important transformational period. Rob Barclay joins as Chief Executive Officer, bringing over 25 years of sector and transformation experience. He will at first spend time with our teams and customers before stepping into the full Chief Executive Officer role in April, focusing on what drives performance and how we can further enhance service and value across the U.K. We also welcome Richard Jones as Interim Chief Financial Officer, who started two weeks ago and will join the board later this week.
Richard has a strong record of building high performance finance functions and supporting strategy across several listed businesses. Together, Rob and Richard bring proven transformation leadership underpinned by full board alignment behind the next phase of Headlam's development. It's early days, but I'm already really pleased with the way Rob and Richard are making progress and engaging with the team. Now let me hand over to Adam, our outgoing Chief Financial Officer, who will take you through the financial performance for the 2025 financial year.
Thanks, Stephen, and good morning, everyone. I've got a handful of slides to cover the income statement, cash flow and balance sheet, starting with the income statement. A reminder that these numbers represent continuing operations. The continental European businesses are held for sale and classified as discontinued operations. Moving through the table, revenue declined 4.6% on a same working day basis. The second half performance was similar to the first half, but with a different mix. The growth in revenue from the larger customers was lower in the second half, while the decline in the core business lessened slightly compared to the first half. Gross margin was broadly unchanged year on year at 29.5%.
This is the net of the mix impact from growth in lower margin larger customers mitigated by margin benefits from the supplier sourcing strategy and centralized buying function. Operating costs were flat year-on-year. Cost inflation was circa GBP 5 million headwind, and the new trade counters in the year added additional costs, but these were offset by cost savings from the transformation plan. Net finance costs were GBP 0.7 million lower, reflecting the net of lower average borrowings and the increase in leases. Overall underlying loss before tax was GBP 39.5 million, reflecting market decline, investment in new trade counter collection points and cost inflation. Non-underlying items were GBP 30.1 million, and I'll go through those on the next slide.
Finally, as I mentioned, the continental European businesses are classified as discontinued operations and are not included in the numbers on this table, and those businesses made an underlying loss before tax of GBP 3.7 million in the year. Moving on to non-underlying items then. Thirty million in total, although the net cash cost of these was only GBP 4 million. Moving down the table, firstly, amortization of intangibles consistent with previous years, GBP 1.1 million in 2025. Asset impairments of GBP 4.8 million in the current year related to write-downs of goodwill and intangible assets for the Melrose business. In the middle of the table there, business restructuring and change related costs associated with the transformation plan totaled GBP 23.2 million.
The cash element of that included severance costs, recruitment, retention and other people-related costs associated with the transformation plan, the one-off cost of investment in new point-of-sale materials to accompany the Mercado consolidation, and advisory costs. The non-cash element of that of GBP 3.4 million is principally related to stock provisions, reflecting the write-down of legacy stock holdings in respect of network optimization initiatives and range rationalization activities. A profit of GBP 6.2 million was generated on the sale and leaseback of the Tamworth distribution center in July, and GBP 5.6 million of costs were incurred on the development of the replacement ERP. That was in line with the costs expected at the outset of the project.
This project has now been paused while the business focuses on the transformation plan and the work on the development of the ERP to date has been what we call shrink wrapped so that we can start it up again at the appropriate time without losing the development work that's been done to date. Then finally, the bottom row of that table, there's a GBP 1.6 million legal claim provision relating to an accident at one of the group sites in 2022. Moving on to cash flow. We commenced the transformation plan in 2024, and over that two-year period, net debt has stayed broadly the same at around GBP 30 million at the end of 2023 to around GBP 30 million at the end of 2025.
This reflects the net of property disposal proceeds and working capital inflows offset by the trading losses and costs of transformation. Over the last two years, these inflows and outflows have almost exactly offset each other. Stephen will talk briefly through the outlook over the coming years in a few minutes, and we expect these moving parts to result in a net cash inflow through the next phase of the transformation plan. Looking at 2025 specifically, inventories were GBP 10.6 million lower, reflecting the actions taken to improve stock turn. These were implemented in the last couple of months of the year, and so the initial impact is a reduction in stock and a reduction in payables, and that's what you see here in the cash flow.
This then turns into an actual cash benefit in 2026 as the payable cycles through. Receivables were lower, reflecting the movement in revenue which resulted in a working capital inflow, and payables declined, resulting in a working capital outflow. Underneath that payables decline, so 10.8 of that decline was due to the payment in January 2025 of VAT collected in December 2024 on the property disposals in that month. The rest of the decline in payables was due to reduction in purchases, particularly in the last two months of the year as the stock efficiency initiatives were implemented. Average payables days were unchanged in the year and have been consistent over the last two years, reflecting stable average payment terms with suppliers.
A net inflow of GBP 1.4 million was received on interest and tax, driven by a tax refund in respect of previous years. Capital investment was GBP 4.4 million, and that included GBP 1.8 million for the final rollouts of trade counters, and that rollout program has now ceased. Lease payments were GBP 15.8 million. The increase year-on-year reflected the additional lease costs and additional lease sites. Non-underlying cash costs netted to GBP 4.2 million a year as per the previous slide. Finally, discontinued operations. The continental European operations they were a cash outflow of GBP 0.8 million in the year. Moving on to balance sheet, and on here we set out the balance sheet on the left-hand side. The key points to pull out are on the right-hand side of this slide.
The business has property assets in the U.K. valued at around GBP 75 million. This is market valuation, which is higher than the book value recorded on the balance sheet. A number of these assets are either currently surplus to requirements or expected to become surplus to requirements, and 3 of the properties are already currently under offer. The group has a substantial net working capital asset. This has averaged GBP 70-75 million over the last couple of years, and there is significant opportunity to realize cash from this, which Stephen will touch on later. Finally, in January this year, we agreed a new borrowing facility which runs to 2029 with an option to extend to 2031. I'll now hand you back to Stephen to talk through the core customer strategy.
Thank you, Adam. As described, performance over the past year has been impacted by a challenging trading environment. The medium-term objective for Headlam is to be a profitable, cash-generative business providing an exceptional service to its customers. In order to achieve this objective, our multi-year core customer strategy was introduced in November. In the next few slides, I'll walk through the five strategic levers we're using to drive the strategy forward. In summary, these are, number one, reduce low-margin revenue from the non-core customer base. Number two, reduce the fixed and variable costs associated with non-core customer revenue. Three, enhance customer service to our independent retailer and contractor customers. Four, simplify ranges and consolidate suppliers, strengthening relationships with key partners. Lastly, optimize cash through strict working capital management and disposal of surplus assets. The first lever focuses on reducing low-margin revenue.
The aim here is simple: improve the quality of our revenue by refocusing on independent retailers and contractors and step away from low-margin activity that absorbs fixed costs without creating value. This lever is driven by four key actions. Firstly, a reduction in low-margin large customer business. With this action, we're altering our focus from chasing volume to only pursuing profitable revenue. The intent is to migrate our customer base from large low-margin customers that utilize our network infrastructure with little profit contribution. Second, we're exiting our continental European business. By exiting unprofitable businesses in France and the Netherlands, we will be able to focus our attention solely on the U.K. This action will reduce our losses and allow us to concentrate our time and resources on our core customers. The third initiative is to improve the quality of our revenue is to optimize category mix.
We currently have a wide range of contribution margins within our product categories, with some making little or no profit after allocating fixed costs. By focusing on product categories with higher gross margins, we're able to optimize our network infrastructure more efficiently and reduce costs to the benefit of absolute profit. Simultaneously, we are re-energizing our higher margin consumer brands. These are highly valued by independent customers as they enable them to generate strong margins and compete against national chains. The final action within this strategic lever relates to consolidating the 80 trade counters we had at the end of 2025. Here, the aim is to refocus on profitable trade counters, enabling the optimization of network infrastructure to significantly reduce fixed costs. By way of example, high rent costs have made some collection points unviable compared to serving those areas through delivery only.
By reducing the network and shifting profitable category sales to nearby trade counters, we will lower fixed costs to the benefit of overall profit. In total, the above initiatives are anticipated to cumulatively reduce revenue while increasing the gross and operating margins of the business when associated costs are removed. Reducing unprofitable revenue provides us with a significant opportunity to reduce both direct and indirect costs. This is the second lever of our core customer strategy. There are many opportunities to reduce direct costs in areas such as warehousing, transport, energy, and rent and rates, as well as indirect costs associated with the operation of the current network. To date, we are at 1.1 million, 1.3 million sq ft of warehousing space in our distribution centers, and this will decrease as we consolidate our network footprint to support our core customers.
At Headlam, we've always taken great pride in our service levels, but we recognize that over the past year, performance has not met the high standards we expect. Some of the changes that Headlam made resulted in unintended consequences. Stock was not always in the right place at the right time, leading to unnecessary internal movements, higher costs, and pressure on on-time delivery. The third and crucial lever of our core customer strategy is therefore a focus on enhancing our customer service. Over recent months, we've made strong progress on delivery improvements. Delivery reliability has improved significantly with our measure of delivery success up year on year in the first two months of 2026. However, we do need to improve availability.
We will improve stock availability through better inventory management and a newly centralized buying function, putting us in a much stronger position to serve our core customers consistently and efficiently. Improving the quality of our offering for all stakeholders through simplified ranges and strengthened supplier relationships is the fourth core customer strategy lever. Our approach here consists of four key actions. The first of which is being a single go-to-market proposition. As a reminder, a year ago, we launched a single go-to-market proposition under our Mercado brand, consolidating 32 trading businesses. Earlier this year, we consolidated 6 different own product brand businesses into the Mercado sales team, simplifying our offer to our customers and providing them with the broadest range of flooring through a unified product list.
With regards to range reduction, we are in the process of reducing our stock keeping units to focus on the products that matter most to our core customers. We've already reduced our live product range from 27,000 to 16,000 SKUs, with further reduction potential as we focus on profitable category mix. Consolidating our purchasing allows us to build stronger long-term supplier relationships. The benefits secured in 2025 will fully annualize in 2026, with more collaboration opportunities already identified for 2026 and 2027. Finally, there are clear opportunities to refine our approach to pricing and discounting through business consolidation, enabling us to drive pricing consistency and optimization. We expect this to deliver meaningful gross margin benefits. Optimizing cash is our fifth lever.
The core customer strategy and transformation plan requires funding, both to cover the trading losses until the group becomes cash generative and to fund the cost of transformation. The group has a clear and well progressed plan in place to generate the required funds through the disposal of assets and optimization of working capital. The cash inflows from these, although not solely in our control, are intended to more than cover the cash requirements, leaving the group with little to no debt at the end of 2027, with further improvements thereafter. In terms of working capital, as we migrate to a more focused business, our need for working capital will reduce, releasing cash. Also, since implementing fully centralized buying, stock turn has improved significantly. In 2023, it was only around three times, but recent run rate is strongly above four times.
As the new core customer strategy matures, we will target a stock turnover at least five times, generating further significant cash benefits while not disadvantaging us versus our competitors. Finally, in terms of raising cash through property disposals, there are currently three properties on the market, with more becoming available for sale over the next 18 months. Any further transactions, if realized, would accelerate our reduction in net debt and further increase the group's liquidity. In summary, with GBP 31 million of net debt at year-end and anticipated inflows from the release of working capital and property disposals, despite a cost of implementing the revised strategy, we expect net debt to reduce in 2026 and more so in 2027. Turning to the outlook. The new core customer strategy will see a material planned reduction in revenue over 2026 and 2027.
Once fully implemented and assuming a stable market, this is expected to result in a smaller base revenue on continuing operations, but with a significant enhancement to quality of earnings through enhanced gross margin. With cost-saving initiatives also on track, overall future net operating margins are expected to return to mid-single digit once the transformation plan is fully executed. The property disposal program and a reduction in working capital is expected to materially reduce net debt by the end of 2026, with further improvements anticipated in 2027. In the near term, trading conditions remain challenging. Consumer spending on home improvements continues to decline, and the conflict in the Middle East, while hard to predict, has already created cost pressures for the wider U.K. flooring industry, with significant price increases in polypropylene and fuel.
Over the medium term, with a clear and granular transformation strategy now in place and beginning to have a positive impact despite continuing challenging trading conditions, the board believes that the outlook for Headlam is positive, reflecting the benefits of its market-leading position, inherent strength, and renewed focus on core independent retailers and contractors. To conclude, the board therefore continues to have confidence in a return to profitability in 2027 as previously guided.
Great. That concludes the presentation. Thank you very much for listening.