Good morning. I'm Stephen Bird, Executive Chairman, and I'm joined today by Adam Phillips, our CFO. Thank you for taking the time to join us today at Coals Hill, our 300,000 sq ft distribution center and a facility we're immensely proud of. Behind me is one of our display stands showcasing our brands that we've been rolling out to our independent customers. I want to talk to you about where Headlam is, how we got here, and most importantly, where we're going. Let me start with what you already know. The last couple of years have been difficult. Our revenues have dropped, we've gone from profit to loss, and our share price reflects the market's view of our performance. I could talk about the challenging market conditions, and they have been challenging, but that would only be part of the story. The reality is that we've also made strategic and commercial mistakes.
Today we're here to talk to you about what our action plan is to return to profitability. However, please do bear in mind that there are commercial sensitivities here, which means that we can't go into all of the detail of our action plan at this stage. Before I get into what went wrong, let me remind you of Headlam's fundamental strengths, because these haven't disappeared. We have unrivaled scale and national reach across the U.K. We remain the largest flooring distributor in the U.K. and Europe, and our network of distribution centers serves independent retailers and contractors better than anyone else can. We have the broadest and largest product range in the market, including exclusive-owned brands that we know our customers value, and the widest range of the industry's leading brands.
We're a one-stop shop flooring solutions provider, and we have strong asset backing, including GBP 80 million of property that gives us greater resilience. We've also made progress on simplification and integration over recent years, including consolidating 32 trading businesses into one, and we've made progress on our transformation plan. These strengths are tangible. They're structural advantages, but we haven't been leveraging them effectively, and that's what we're here to address. What did not go to plan? A few years ago, we set out on a growth strategy that looked sensible on paper. We had excess capacity on our network, and we thought we could fill it by winning volume in new areas: national key accounts, trade counters, and expanding our contract business. The logic was sound. Use the infrastructure we already had, spread fixed costs over more revenue, and wait for the market to recover.
In hindsight, the strategy had unintended consequences, and the execution did not adequately account for how rapidly market conditions would deteriorate, nor the speed and aggression with which a competitor would capitalize on the opportunity to engage with our independent retailer base. We should have modified our approach more quickly when we saw these dynamics emerging. The feedback from our independent retailers and contractors was negative. They felt we were competing with them rather than supporting them. The growth initiatives we pursued did not just fail to deliver, they damaged our core business. We won key account contracts, but on terms that are challenging to make consistent profits. We invested heavily in trade counters, but they alienated our independent customers and added significant cost. We have secured additional revenue, but we have lost profitable residential revenue from our core customer base.
The market has been tough, and our strategic choices have not helped, and that is what we are here to address. That is why more radical action is required. I have stepped in as Executive Chair because I care about this business and the people in it. I am not going to stand here and tell you that everything is fine, because it is not. I am going to tell you that we know what we need to do, we now have the right people to do it, and we are already making it happen. Since stepping in, we have taken decisive action. First, we have made critical leadership changes. We have promoted John Clark to the executive team as our new Sales Director. John brings decades of flooring experience and is highly respected across the industry by suppliers, by independent retailers, and by contractors.
He understands our market intimately because he's lived it his whole career, and his deep market knowledge and relationships are already proving invaluable as we execute our action plan. We've also expanded the role of James Heath, who is our Chief Buying Officer, to include supply chain, giving us the integrated operational grip we've been lacking. James has 30 years of commercial and 20 years of flooring experience. We now have a strengthened leadership team that understands flooring and understands our customers. Next, we brought in further external help from Alvarez & Marsal to help with the transformation. They're working alongside our team to help us move at pace. We've already secured significant improvements, and it's a tangible example of what becomes possible when you combine industry expertise with commercial discipline. In particular, we are consolidating our supply base and creating strategic partnerships with our key suppliers.
Stock levels are reducing following implementation of fully centralized buying, and this is a material opportunity, and our network optimization has presented further surplus property disposal opportunities where our actions are already underway. Our benefit of being a smaller revenue business is being a more efficient one, and we aim to release cash in the next couple of years. Most importantly, we've developed a clear path back to profitability without being dependent on any market recovery. What does that focus business look like? It's very simple. We're refocusing on the independent retailers and flooring contractors who are the cornerstone of the U.K. flooring industry. Customers have told us very clearly what frustrates them about working with Headlam. Stock availability hasn't been good enough. Deliveries have been mistimed. We've been overly focused on our trade counters rather than focused on them. They felt like we don't value their business anymore.
We're listening, and we're acting to address areas that need to be improved. We're simplifying our routes to market and eliminating loss-making sales. No more focus on unprofitable revenue just to fill capacity. We're consolidating our purchases and leveraging our scale as the U.K. and Europe's largest purchaser of flooring. We've already achieved significant improvements in this area. We're reducing our footprint further to reflect our revised business model: a leaner, more efficient operation focused on what we do best. We're addressing stock availability through better inventory management and our newly centralized buying function. We're improving delivery reliability by reinstating operational disciplines that had slipped. We're making it absolutely clear through our actions, not just our words, that independent retailers and contractors are our priority.
We're improving stock turn through better inventory management and our newly centralized buying function, and we're reducing the SKUs to focus on the products that matter most to our core customers. This is a clear plan, and actions are already underway. Let me paint the picture of where we're headed in the medium term. We will refocus and grow with independent retailers and contractors while eliminating loss-making revenue elsewhere. This is our core. This is where our competitive advantages matter most. We're also re-energizing our higher-margin consumer brands. These are brands that independents value, that help them compete against national change, and that generate strong margins for both them and us. We're strengthening our residential hard flooring strategy alongside our commitment to carpet, where our strength has always been.
We are rebuilding our sales culture, bringing back the entrepreneurialism and accountability to local teams that made Headlam successful in the first place, but with sensible controls around this. I know what some of you might be thinking. This all sounds good, but can you actually deliver it? That is a fair question. Let me give you some reasons to believe we can. First, we have significant size. Our national network of distribution centers gives us reach and efficiency that is already established and difficult to replicate. Second, as the U.K.'s largest purchaser of flooring, we have the chance to create long-term, mutually beneficial supplier partnerships as we consolidate our purchases. Others are not able to match this. Third, we have good merchandising capabilities. Our point-of-sale systems and product presentation tools help independent retailers compete effectively against national chains and online players. These advantages have not gone away.
We've just been deploying them in the wrong direction. Now we're pointing them where they should have been all along. Let me talk about the financial pathway, because I know that's what ultimately matters to you as shareholders. We will deliver significantly reduced losses in 2026, and we will be profitable in 2027. We're going to get there through exiting unprofitable business, optimizing our headcount and cost base, right-sizing our network, and implementing further pricing discipline. We're planning to strengthen our financial position through working capital optimization, specifically reducing inventory by tens of millions. We believe this is achievable through better stock turn and the lower revenue base we'll have after exiting unprofitable business. We will also dispose of surplus properties as we right-size our network, and we've already made progress, but there is more to do.
The result will be a sustainable and cash-generative business supported by low capital intensity. This is a business model that can weather market cycles and deliver consistent returns. Before I close, I want to say something about our people. This has been a tough period for everyone at Headlam. Our colleagues are living through restructuring uncertainty and the frustration of seeing a plan that was not working. They deserve great leadership, and I am committed to giving them that. I am already seeing the difference that clarity of direction makes. When people understand what we are trying to achieve, when they have leaders who know the industry and know what good looks like, when they can see that we are acting with urgency, they respond. We are building a culture where people can be proud to work at Headlam again. The independent retailers and contractors we serve are resilient.
The market will recover, even if not to previous peaks. When it does, we're going to be there, initially smaller, but stronger, more focused, and more profitable. We're using this time to right-size Headlam and to get back to what we've always done best, being the essential partner to the independent flooring trade in the U.K. I recognize that this has been an extremely difficult period for you as shareholders. I'm not asking you to take what we say on faith. We'll demonstrate our progress through our actions and our results.