Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Howden's 2025 results presentation. I'll begin by introducing our performance for the year. Jackie Callaway, our CFO, will then review our financial results for the period, and then I'll share my perspectives on our 2025 performance and our plans for this year, and then we'll take your questions. The business advanced on all fronts in, as we anticipated, a challenging U.K. marketplace. The results were at the top end of our expectations, and we've made an encouraging start to 2026. Group sales were up 4% year-on-year, with the business continuing to perform well in the final two periods of the year. In the U.K., we gained kitchen market share, which helped us mitigate a small single digit decline in the overall market size.
Our kitchen volumes rose, which helped us consolidate the significant market share gains that we've made over the past five years or so, with our longest-established depots making a substantial contribution to the share gains that we've made over this period. We delivered an industry-leading gross margin, with gross profit up on last year, and we balanced recovery of cost rises with our commitment to providing competitive pricing for our customers. Reported profit was 5% ahead of last year, increasing at a higher rate than sales. We progressed our strategic initiatives for the U.K., and total sales of our international operations increased significantly. At the year-end, we had a total of 970 depots trading, including 891 in the U.K. The business delivered strong operating cash flow, and we maintained a robust balance sheet.
This gives us flexibility to continue to invest in our growth plans for the business and provide shareholders with an increased total dividend for the year. For 2026, we've also announced today a new GBP 100 million share buyback program. Our full-year results demonstrate the strength of our local trade-only in-stock model. A strong product lineup, high stock availability, industry-leading service levels, and a very engaged team have all contributed to our performance, which benefits from the ongoing investments in our strategic initiatives. In the U.K., the number of customer accounts is at the year-end, and the number of accounts trading during the year were similar to last year's record levels, with customers on average spending more.
So far this year, our performance has been in line with our expectations, and whilst it's early in the year, we are on track to meet current market expectations for 2026 in what remains a competitive marketplace. For 2026, our planning assumption is that the overall size of the kitchen market will be about level year-on-year, following several years of decline. We are well prepared for the challenges and opportunities ahead with our customers, who are typically self-employed people, are highly adept at winning business in all market conditions. Delivered by our highly entrepreneurial and well-incentivized depot teams, I believe our service-oriented, trade-only, in-stock, local model is the right one to deliver sustainable market share gains. Our model is hard to replicate, difficult to compete with, and we have initiatives in place to make it even more so.
In 2025, we believe the value of our principal U.K. markets total some GBP 11 billion, versus our U.K. sales of GBP 2.3 billion, which also includes a contribution from our fitted bedroom initiative, bedrooms being a significant market in its own right. Our markets remain relatively unconsolidated. There are significant long-term opportunities for us. We will invest in the business on this basis. I'm going to update you on our strategic initiatives, which are key to our longer-term development of the business, after Jackie takes you through our financial results for the year. Jackie, thank you.
Thanks, Andrew. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to present Howden's financial results for 2025. I'll begin by summarizing the key highlights. The business performed well against all financial metrics in a challenging marketplace. In the second half, we continued the positive trading momentum achieved in the first half. Following our last trading update, the business continued to perform well in the final two periods of the year. Group sales increased by 4.1% to 2.4 billion GBP. Gross margin was 110 basis points ahead of last year. We benefited from the price increase implemented at the start of the year and from effectively managing price and volume as we continued to take market share. We maintained our focus on productivity and delivered further sourcing and manufacturing efficiencies in the year.
Operating expenses were tightly controlled, and we delivered an EBIT margin of 14.7%, with profit growth ahead of sales, while continuing to invest in our strategic initiatives. Profit before tax is at 5.1% to GBP 345 million. The effective tax rate was 22.4%, down from 24% in 2024, as we refined the Patent Box claim. Finally, we delivered an EPS growth of 8%, and this reflected the profit growth achieved in the year, a lower tax rate, and the lower share count as a result of the share buyback program. Now, let's look at sales growth in a bit more detail. In challenging market conditions, we maintained a disciplined approach to pricing and volume.
Through delivery of a differentiated business model by our highly entrepreneurial depot teams, we also gained share in a market we estimate fell by around 3%. Overall, U.K. revenue increased by 3.8% to GBP 2.3 billion, was up 2.6% on a same depot basis. The price increase implemented at the start of the year had an impact of around 2%. In our international depots, revenue was EUR 99 million, 12% ahead of 2024, and 9% higher on a same depot basis. In France, the new senior leadership team focused on strengthening depot capabilities. Our Irish depots have traded well since we entered the market three years ago, and we expect to expand the footprint further this year. Andrew will talk through these initiatives in more detail shortly. Now, turning to profit before tax.
Starting from profit before tax of GBP 328 million in 2024, gross profit was GBP 84 million higher. The price increase delivered a GBP 41 million benefit, with volumes and mix contributing GBP 29 million, and sourcing and manufacturing benefits a further GBP 14 million. Kitchen volumes increased. We grew our share of sales in each of the three price bands we follow as we continue to invest in new kitchens and associated kitchen products. We believe there are significant longer-term growth opportunities across all three price bands. Our in-house manufacturing and strategic sourcing capabilities remain a key competitive advantage for us. We are progressing plans to develop the Runcorn site, which will increase capacity there by around 1 million rigid cabinets, supporting our longer-term ambition for the business, while preserving the low-cost manufacturing advantage.
Total operating cost increases were held to GBP 68 million, balancing tight cost control with investment in our strategic initiatives. This disciplined approach supported an increase in EBIT margin and a profit before tax of GBP 345 million for the year. Let's look at operating costs in a bit more detail. Ongoing investment in our strategic initiatives was GBP 28 million in the year. This included the incremental costs of the new U.K. depots, which totaled GBP 12 million and included the cost of the 52 depots opened this year and in the prior year. We invested a further GBP 13 million in other strategic initiatives, predominantly digital. We invested in our international businesses, for example, by expanding our presence in the Republic of Ireland. In our existing U.K. depots, additional costs of GBP 11 million related predominantly to volume increases.
We also incurred GBP 11 million of additional labor costs arising from the government's changes to the employees' national insurance and the minimum wage, which came into effect last April. In other costs, this mainly related to variable pay and incentives, which were higher this year, given the strong trading performance and the actions we are taking to optimize the depot network in France. I would also highlight that we offset around GBP 27 million of inflationary cost increases with productivity and efficiency actions taken in the year. In 2026, we expect continuing inflationary headwinds of around GBP 30 million in the total cost base, in areas such as commodities, labor, and additional property costs. As in previous years, we will offset these where practicable with further productivity and efficiency savings.
We will also continue to invest in our strategic initiatives to fund future growth. Andrew will take you through our plans for 2026 shortly. Next, our cash flow. Cash generation was strong. We ended the year with GBP 345 million of cash. In total, we invested around GBP 26 million in working capital in the year to support our growth. Capital expenditure for the year totaled GBP 125 million, as planned, before the GBP 31 million for the purchase of the Runcorn site. Our normalized CapEx spend will continue to be around GBP 125 million a year. Aside from maintenance caps, CapEx, which is around GBP 30 million a year, within this total, there are three major investment categories that we are prioritizing to support our growth. First, manufacturing.
We continue to make investments in our U.K. manufacturing base to enhance productivity and increase capacity and broaden our capabilities. Second, depot reformats and openings. Our updated format provides the best environment to do business with our trade customers, we continue to see attractive investment returns when we convert a depot. Finally, digital. We will continue to support our trade customers by upgrades to our digital capabilities to make them more productive and to raise brand awareness. We are also using technology to support new services and ways to trade, while delivering productivity benefits to the depots. Moving on to cash tax. We benefited from the prior year tax credit arising from our Patent Box claim. Looking forward into 2026, we expect cash tax to be around GBP 60 million, with an effective tax rate of around 23%-24%.
Finally, you can see that in the year, we returned over GBP 216 million to shareholders through ordinary dividends and share buybacks, and we'd expect to have a similar approach in 2026. Moving on to the pension scheme. Over the last nine months, we have worked with the trustees to review the strategy of the defined pension scheme. The scheme is well-funded, with a surplus on an ongoing funding basis, meaning that no contributions are currently payable by the company. The current funding arrangement is in place to the end of May 2027, while we undertake the next triennial valuation, which is due at the 31st of March this year. We are now actively engaging with the trustee to manage and reduce pension risks over time through a collaborative joint working party framework.
This will look to reduce and manage pension risk proactively in areas such as investment strategy, data and benefits, and scheme funding. Howdens is a strongly cash-generative business, and we have a robust balance sheet, which gives us the opportunity to invest in future growth, as well as rewarding shareholders with attractive cash returns over a long period of time. In total, we have generated £3.8 billion in operating cash flows in the last 10 years. We've invested over GBP 900 million in the business. This high returning capital investment has been across both strategic organic growth initiatives and bolt-on opportunities, like the investment in the solid work surfaces business three years ago, alongside our maintenance CapEx programs. Howdens remains disciplined in the returns we achieve from our capital allocation and investment.
This discipline is unchanged over many years and has driven our overall return on capital employed, which in 2025 is a healthy 25%, sorry, 23%, well ahead of our cost of capital. Over the same timeframe, we've returned over GBP 1.5 billion to shareholders in dividends and buybacks. In 2025, we grew earnings per share by 8% as a result of our earnings growth, a lower tax rate, and the buyback we completed in the year. Now, moving on to capital allocation. Our capital allocation policy is unchanged, with the principles set out on the slide. We continue to operate within our clear capital allocation framework, and for several years we have operated with a policy where year-end surplus cash, defined as amounts in excess of GBP 250 million, is returned to shareholders.
This is unchanged and appropriate for Howdens, despite the significant growth in the business over time. This still provides sufficient headroom to accommodate our seasonal working capital requirements, support CapEx into organic growth, and ongoing investment into our strategic initiatives and opportunities, whilst maintaining our strong balance sheet. We also recognize the importance of the dividend and dividend growth to shareholders. The board is recommending a final dividend for 2025 of GBP 0.169, an increase of 3.7%, and resulting in a total dividend of GBP 0.219 per ordinary share. The final dividend will be paid on the 22nd of May, 2026. Taking all of this into consideration and reflecting the group's continued strong financial position, the board is also announcing today a new GBP 100 million share buyback program for 2026.
To summarize, we have performed well this year in a challenging marketplace. Our trade model is differentiated, our strategy is well defined, and we are executing well. For 2026, our planning assumption is that the overall size of the U.K. kitchen market will be level year-on-year after several years of decline. We continue to be proactive in delivering productivity and efficiency savings to deliver profit growth and offset inflationary headwinds. Our robust balance sheet and cash generation support our continued investment in the business, we remain confident of delivering growth ahead of our markets, while generating strong cash flow and attractive returns for shareholders. While it's early in the new financial year, we're on track to meet current market expectations for 2026 in what remains a competitive market. Thank you, I'll now hand back to Andrew.
Thank you, Jackie. As I mentioned earlier, we believe that our markets give us significant long-term growth opportunities. Our strategic initiatives are key to capitalizing on these, and I'm going to use those as a framework to review our 2025 performance and our plans for this year. They're based around the key features of our business model, such as industry-leading levels of service and convenience, trade value, product leadership, but they're all delivered by highly entrepreneurial teams, who in turn build long-term relationships with local tradespeople. Our initiatives are to evolve our depot network, to improve our range and supply management, to develop our digital capabilities and services, and to expand our international operations. First, depot evolution, and high service levels, including local proximity and immediate availability, are very important to our customers, and we continue to see profitable opportunities to open up depots.
Overall, we have line of sight to around 1,000 depots in the U.K. In 2025, we opened up 23 U.K. depots, including 18 in the two final periods, with a total of 891 trading at the year-end. This year, we expect to open around 25 more depots. We continue to take a highly disciplined approach to the location of our depots. Our updated format enables us to provide the best working environment for our depot teams and to make productivity and space utilization gains in a cost-effective way. We will now show you a short video that takes you around our Stockport depot, which we opened last year, and whose layout is very typical of the latest iterations of our formats. The kitchen displays show most of our kitchen families, including Paint to Order options and solid surface.
Our trade counter stocks many of our everyday products and provides a chance for a chat and a brew. Our open-plan business area makes it easy for our trade customers to easily access advice from our teams. We have space for our designers to plan kitchens for trade customers, a full Wall of Fame of our kitchen collection, known in our depots as the Wall of Fame. We have a new selection area for customers to view our kitchen door and worktop combinations, including our solid surface proposition. Our presentation rooms are private and have high-definition screens to bring to life customers' kitchen choices in 3D. Our sales conversions here are extremely high. Our restructured warehousing and racking is a vital Howdens' USP and enables us to serve the trade with stock reliably and often instantly.
The updated format has strengthened our competitive proposition, and our program to convert older depots to this format is well advanced. Last year, we completed a further 60 revamps, including nine relocations, taking the total so completed to 410. These principally comprise conversions of our larger and longest-established depots. This year, including relocations, we plan to convert another 45 depots, and by the end of this year, we'll have revamped around 68% of all depots which opened in the old format, and we'll have around 77% of all U.K. depots trading in the updated one. As I mentioned earlier, the latest iteration of the format has a separate area for customers to view kitchens, doors, and worktop combinations.
Over the next two years or so, we will also be making the minor layout modifications necessary to include this area in the depots that were prior to the 2025 refits. Range and supply management. Investment in service, product, and availability helps us develop long-term customer relationships and build competitive advantage. Sales of new product are a significant contributor to our performance. Sales of product introduced in 2025 and the prior two calendar years represent around 29% of U.K. product sales, with product launch in 2023 being the largest contributor. Value for money is a constant feature of our purchasers' buying decisions, and we are committed to providing our customers with market-leading, easy-to-fit, and fairly priced product. Given pressures on household budgets, price featured predominantly in 2025, and we expected to do so again this year.
With an emphasis on value for money and choice at all price points, our offering is well-positioned to take advantage of this. Our kitchen NPI for 2026 makes more colors, styles, and finishes available to more budgets, including at entry and mid-level price points. We are innovating in other long-established product categories and adding more colors and styles to our fitted bedroom offering, launched two years ago. As we continue to invest in product innovation to capitalize on the significant growth opportunities we have, efficient management of our kitchen range is crucial to balancing customer choice and availability with our profitability. Our rigid kitchen platform is shared across all our families, which helps us introduce new kitchen options at more price points cost-effectively. Our stock management and replenishment enhancements, including our XDC network, enabled us to provide best availability on a broader offering at a lower cost.
More efficient new product testing enables us to bring more proven new styles to market more quickly. Our increased presence in the premium-end market, which is where range innovations are usually made, is also forming, informing, and accelerating our ranging decisions at other price points. Excluding Paint to Order, we have 24 new kitchens confirmed for 2026. That's compared to 23 last year and 11 in the prior year. We will enter the second half with our entire offering of such kitchens organized into 11 families, with a similar total count to last year. In 2025, sales of our entry-level and mid-level kitchen families represented respectively, the highest number of kitchens we sold and the most kitchen sales by value.
Last year, we brought to market 13 new kitchens for our established entry and mid-level families and launched Frome in four colors, a new family whose styling updated that of our long-standing Chelford family. This year, we have 15 new kitchens for these families. For our entry-level families, our Heartland, our traditional Heartland, we have five new kitchens in colors which are popular elsewhere in our offering, including Greenwich and Witney in porcelain and Allendale, shown there in reed green. At mid-level, we have discontinued Chelford, and we will add six colors to our most modern Shaker range, Frome, including Mist and Pebble. Elsewhere, we've introduced some more emerging colors and finishes to our best-performing mid-level families, including Clerkenwell in super matte mist and Halesworth in ash green.
We've upscaled our higher-priced kitchen portfolios in recent years, utilizing Howdens sub scale supply and manufacturing capabilities to offer the bespoke look most associated with high street independence at competitive pricing. Our offering now comprises four families, including three Shaker-style timber families, which are closely marketed as Classic Timber Kitchens. In 2025, our Classic Timber Kitchens families performed particularly well, with the Paint to Order options growing in popularity. The number of our Chilcomb and Elmbridge kitchens sold in Paint to Order colors, which are priced at a premium to stocked colors, increased significantly in 2025. This year, we are refreshing our Paint to Order palette with four new colors, with two of the leading paint colors becoming Chilcomb and Elmbridge stocked colors.
Last year, we extended the reach of our timber offering with the launch of a new family called Ilfracombe, an in-framed timber kitchen of classic design. Positioned above Chilcomb and Elmbridge families, Ilfracombe is exclusively available in 24 Paint to Order colors. Solid surface worktops, which are often, but not exclusively, associated with the sale of higher priced kitchens, continue to represent significant opportunities for the group. In recent years, we've increased the number of decors we offer in this service, and for this year we've introduced clearer and simpler ranging and more delineated pricing to demonstrate the value we offer at all price points. Ahead of peak trading later this year, our total offering will comprise a similar number of options to last year, with increased space available to display worktops in more of our depots.
We continue to upgrade our offering in other categories, including our own category, specifically, own label brands, which complement the third-party branding product we sell. Our Lamona branding is one of the leading integrated appliance brands in the U.K. For this year, we have a major refresh of our brand's offering. We've modified the design, lowered the prices of a suite of high-volume products without compromising these products' functionality. Elsewhere, we've updated the design and specification of a number of high-priced products, including washing machines, fridge freezers, and cookers. Launched in 2023, our own label flooring brand, Oake and Gray, now represents a substantial portion of the category sales, having introduced water-resistant laminates last year. New product for this year includes sustainably sourced engineered wood flooring with market-leading standing water resistance. In ironmongery, we launched our own label called Fuller and Forge.
Fuller and Forge product has landed well and has significantly improved this offering in our category. For this year, we have new finishes and new designs, and we'll be adding new subcategories. As well as being substantial businesses, doors and joinery remain a key footfall building product for us in our depots. Last year, we launched our more colors and bolder styles at all price points to our door lineup. A new product this year includes a new premium range of Howden-branded solid engineered doors. In joinery, we will continue to develop the subcategory extensions into wall paneling, stair parts, and loft spaces that we initiated in 2025. Fitted bedrooms were well ahead of the previous year. Bedrooms represent a growing source of incremental sales and profit and help us foster customer relationships.
Installing fitted bedroom suits the skills of our customers who fit kitchens. Last year, a substantial portion of our total bedroom sales represented purchases either by new customers or by customers who'd bought from us relatively infrequently. We developed our bedroom ranges in-house, utilizing our existing design and supply infrastructure. They have a high cabinetry content, which, of course, matches our manufacturing capabilities. In 2025, our 2025 offering comprised bedrooms in five leading family designs, drawn from our kitchen portfolio, including new family, Clerkenwell, launched during the year. This year, we will continue to target entry and mid-price points with five new bedrooms, including new colors for Bridgemere and Halesworth. Our product offering is underpinned by our dedicated sourcing operations, which manufacture or source the right product in complex categories and distribute it efficiently across our depot network.
Howdens is an in-stock business. The trade tell us that high levels of stock availability is one of the key reasons that they buy from us. The investment in our XDC network, which enables us to offer next-day delivery service and other recent initiatives, including daily traders, facilitate exceptional levels of service to our depots. In 2025, deliveries totaled some 73 million pieces. Our service level from primary to our depots was at 99.98%. That is a world-class performance by any standard. Our in-house manufacturing capability has a source of competitive advantage for us. We always keep under review what we believe is best to make or buy by balancing cost and overall supply chain availability, resilience, and flexibility. Recent investments in manufacturing have strengthened our competitive position by increasing our manufacturing capacity and by adding broader and new capabilities.
Our Runcorn factory, with its high volume, low cost making capability, has always been an integral part of our manufacturing and logistics strategy. With planning permissions in place, our development program for Runcorn site is now underway. At the end of last year, we also acquired the freehold of this site. We expect the works will take about three years to complete, in line with our long-term ambitions for the business. The program will give us, at Runcorn, more capacity, more flexibility, and broader capabilities to deliver lower cost of goods sold than would otherwise have been the case. Turning to our digital platform. We use digital to reinforce our model of strong local relationships between our depots and their customers.
We do this by raising brand awareness to support the business model with new services and ways to trade with us and to deliver productivity benefits and more leads into our depots and into our depot teams. Usage of our online account facilities, which provide efficient, which provide efficiencies and benefits for our customers and depots alike, has continued to increase. New registrations have totaled some 59,000, around 61% of our customers had an online account at the year-end. Total users viewing our trade platform has increased by 45%, with around 80% of users regularly looking at their individual and confidential pricing. Customers with online accounts have, on average, continued to trade more frequently and spend more than non-users.
We generated high levels of engagement with our web platform and grew our social media presence, which also stimulates interest in viewing our products and services online. site visits totaled some 24 million in the year. Among kitchen specialists, we continue to have the highest number of fitted kitchen site visits in the U.K. The time spent viewing pages and the numbers of sessions were consistently at high levels. Across the leading social media channels, our follower base, at around 720,000, was up 18%, with around 6.8 million engagements in a month. Usage of our upgraded click-and-collect service for everyday products increased. The new depot account management tool introduced last year is helping depots manage their customer relationships more efficiently and more productively.
We have also recently introduced a new depot pricing and margin tool, which we call PALM, and it's now operational in all our U.K. depots. We designed this in-house. PALM makes depot price management easier and more effective. It provides comprehensive data for depots to make more informed pricing decisions with a higher degree of confidence and enables depots to access quickly and see the impact that it has on their margin. Depot feedback has been very positive, and we are seeing both more bespoke local pricing and improvements in depot margins on products which we incorporate in the system. Finally, international. In 2025, year-on-year sales of our international operations based in France increased at a higher rate than in the previous two years. In tough market conditions, the business responded positively to the measures taken to improve existing depot sales performance.
We now have in place a highly experienced leadership team, adept at depot management, and have invested in enhancing offerings of footfall, promoting products, alongside a number of other initiatives. In 2026, we will continue to build out our depot teams' capabilities, particularly account management and actively manage our depot estate, including by closures and relocations where necessary, as we look to build on the progress that we've made there. We are also trialing a more compact version of our format, initially at a test depot in Reims , to the West of Paris. At around 500 square meters, this version is under half the average size of a current U.K. depot, has a lower rental cost, and the layout incorporates all the latest U.K. format innovations that you saw in the video earlier.
We expect to maintain the aggregate number of depots trading at around the current number as we actively manage our depot estate to optimize its performance. Sales in the Republic of Ireland were well ahead of last year, we will be opening more depots there in 2026. The Irish market suits our differentiated model and one which sets us apart from the competition there. We opened for business in the Republic of Ireland in 2022, we used a similar depot location strategy to that in France, with the local team supported by our U.K. infrastructure and also our digital platform. By the end of 2025, we had 16 depots trading, including nine clustered around Dublin, with three serving Cork. This year, we expect to open around five more depots, which would increase the number trading to 21 by the year-end.
For 2026, we are well planned, including on our strategic initiatives. These are aimed at increasing our market share profitably, as day-to-day, we deliver value to customers across all price points and product categories. We have 24 new kitchens in stock, well ahead of peak autumn trading, plus a very competitively priced Paint to Order kitchen offering. Overall, our lineup in all product categories is the best that we've had in my time at Howdens. We have a program of Rooster deals in place to keep Howdens at the front of the trades minds, together with other price initiatives. We will continue to improve service and availability and increase the range of services and functionality we offer online to the benefit of our depot teams, customers, and end users alike.
During 2026, we plan to open around 25 depots in the U.K. and refurbish around another 45 existing depots to the updated format. In total, we expect to end the year with around 85 depots trading in the Republic of Ireland, France, and Belgium together. Lastly, before we take questions, outlook. So far this year, our performance has been in line with our expectations, and whilst it's early in our financial year, we are on track to meet current market expectations for 2026 in what remains a competitive marketplace. We are planning for the size of the kitchen market to be level year and year, following several years of decline, and we are well prepared for challenges and opportunities ahead.
We aim to retain a profitable balance between price and volume as we continue to maintain competitive pricing whilst aligning operating costs and working with suppliers to keep product and input costs controlled. We are confident that our business model is the right one to address the opportunities of our markets. In summary, we're well-placed to outperform our competitors again in 2026, as we both continue to invest in our strategic initiatives and return GBP 100 million to shareholders through the new buyback program that we've announced today. Thank you very much for listening to me and to Jackie, and we will now both take your questions.
Morning. Allison from Bank of America. Congratulations. It's very good results. Two questions from my side. First is: What makes you confident that 2026 overall kitchen market will be flattish instead of another decline? Second is, can you give us a bit more color in terms of the sales rate for P12, P13 last year and the year to date? Thank you.
Yeah. We do a really incredible job in our business of listening to our depot managers, and we, you know, we highly value our day-to-day trading, and the rhythm that we feel out of that comes a lot from our meeting with depot managers. You know, I go to. We have 70 regional boards, where we have about 90 managers coming to meetings. It happens 70 x a year. I get to 92% of those meetings this year with Austin, who's sat with us today. So you feel it. You can see the numbers online. You can feel the rhythm of the business. Last Tuesday, Austin and I had some of our top managers to dinner in London. They come from different parts of the U.K. Austin and I wanted to talk about a number of issues in front.
All of them are feeling pretty good about the market. You know, they say it's tough. They say it's competitive. There's no doubt we're out fighting. The retailers, you know, who go out with their false sales, in my mind, of establishing prices in December and giving you a half-price dishwasher and interest-free and all that nonsense, you know, that's what we're up fighting against at the minute, but we are making good progress against it all. I would say our feeling and our knowledge of the market would lead us to believe that, you know, we've got a decent year from a market perspective in us. You know, things like interest rates moving down a wee bit, of course, help. Do we feel that on a day-to-day basis? I don't know.
I think a combination of our initiatives, the product that we're landing this year, and I have not chosen to show you all the product we've got coming this year because I just feel it's too sensitive now to be sharing in this forum to the market. What James Mackenzie has done and brought to this business is brilliant. We've got so much product coming through in the second half of this year, and I think it's sensational what's happening. I think it's a combination of the market's going to be a bit better, and we are so well-placed to take more of it. Look, the back end of the year was good. There were different days of trading.
We tend to trade pretty well towards the back end of the year because we're the only guys in town with stock on the ground, and if somebody wants to get a job done pre-Christmas, they come to us. We have a sort of rhythm in our business where we close out our accounts. We've done Trade Fest, which was, you know, a great success for a new sort of branded proposition of our peak trading, honoring the trades and supporting the trades. Great Trade Fest, delivered it all out, close out the year play, get the price increase prepared for, bed it in in January, come out fighting in January. All of that, we would say is, you know, it's gone very well to plan. Not really going to comment on individual figures.
We used to give out periods one and two at these events, and actually, if you look at it doesn't give you any indication as to whether the year is going to be good or bad, but we're just saying we're comfortable right now.
Thanks. Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just two from me, please. Maybe just elaborating on the kind of early trade in terms of timing and scale of price rises you expect this year, and within the 2.6% same depot sales last year, how much of that was price? Secondly, I guess just coming back again a bit more on the market share, you've obviously outperformed the market for... I think you said the market was down 3% last year. You know, do you expect to continue to grow market share as much as you have been over the last couple of years in 2026?
Look, we've probably become more and more sophisticated in our price increases as we've put them in. I mentioned the PALM tool, which is mostly outside of kitchens, where the depot managers will be flexing more prices as they go through the year. You'll see us do more dynamic prices as more and more customers go online, see their confidential pricing. We want them to see pricing that our managers are completely comfortable with on a local level, and we've been making progress on that side. On kitchens, you know, we typically go out with a sort of 4%. We hope to retain about 2% of it type of thing, but it's too early to say that we've done that at this point in the year, given, the depots are out fighting in the market.
But we're pleased with how that's all sort of laying out in terms of the like for like for last year. I think you can read a, you know, a sensible mix between half price, half volume. I think that's what we are pleased about with what happened last year. I would continue to say that the market this year will be competitive. There's no doubt. We love a scrap, and our customers are so well placed because they're running their own businesses. You know, when the market's tough, our customers go out and, you know, win the business. You know, there's more at stake for them. The depots that really perform, like the depot managers that us and I had in the room on Tuesday night, you know, they're incredibly close relationships with their customers.
It's like, here it is like, when people say they know their customers in the business, we know our customers in our business. When I say know them, they really are very close to their customer base, you know? You know, one of the depots had 1,600 customers there. One had 800 customers there. The depot with 800 customers happens to be our highest performing depot in the whole estate, and they don't change, and they come back, and they're regular, and they just spend more and more with them. I would say the proposition is well placed with which what we've got from a sort of a product point of view.
Wee bit of interest rates of, I say that, and I'm not leaning on that as a, as a thing for this year, but, you know, this is self-help, and it's the model really, working incredibly well with the initiatives and our very strong day-to-day trading. The thing I would add to it also for last year, you know, people in our teams, I think they feel well. Morale in the business is high, and people have had a good taste of making money. You know, we don't turn up for the dental plan in this business. We turn up to grow profitable volume, I'm excited to see our depots earning well, with the opportunity to earn even more in the coming year. You know, they're a formidable bunch.
Brilliant. I've got the mic, so I'll go. Christen Hjorth from Deutsche Bank. Two from me. First one, just for Jackie. Your first full year will be in 2026. Just an idea of the sort of areas that you'll be looking to focus on, you know, as relatively new to the business.
The second one, just for Andrew. You point there's a lot more to go for in terms of strategic growth. I mean, how should we think about that? Is that sort of leveraging the investment that you've done to date in XDC and range, et cetera, or are there more new areas to invest in to drive growth? Those are the two things.
Yeah. Do you want me to start?
Let me make a start. Look, it's been, it's nine months here at Howdens. It's been an absolutely fantastic first nine months. It's an amazing business, you don't really know till you get in. Having got in, it is, it's, you know, it's well invested, very well invested. We've invested through what has been a difficult cycle, I think, in the industry. We're well set up for growth going forward. We've got highly motivated teams, to support us. From a, you know, is there things that I think I need to come in and massively fix? I think the answer to that is no. The business is well placed. There's a few areas that you, that I am focusing on. I think pensions would be a good example of one that we talked about.
I think there's some good opportunities around our pension scheme and how we might de-risk that, so that would be an area. I think it's around just within finance, it's just driving the finance team to be a good, you know, good business partners to the business and to support what we're doing strategically. Those would probably be my two key areas.
In answer to your second question, I think one of the things that we've got really right here is actually our strategic plan, which we call Raised Ambition internally, is well understood right up and down the organization. We tie together our, you know, our business design, you know, with trusted trade relationships right at the center, and we constantly think about product innovation and value and making sure it's really convenient for customers to buy. Of course, we're always developing new things. You'll see in our depot format, you know, we're moving on the iterations. I'll never let this get, you know, as bad as, you know, it was when I sort of turned up.
The depots were tired, and I don't think they did represent the right environment for us to do business with our customers. I remember in my first presentation, Geoff Lowery gave me a knock and said: "Sort of, isn't it about time?" You know, that has been a very, very successful program. We continue to do that, and take lessons into France, and just think about sizing as well to make them more profitable quickly. From a ranging point of view, there is always more you can do, and we are very keen to stay on the front foot of a high proportion of innovation brought in as a big portion. We measure it, and we're incentivized on it, and the teams are incentivized it from bonus and LTIP points of view. We do it 'cause it's the right thing.
It drives interest for customers, it drives margin accretion, it helps us deal with old stock. You know, we are obsessive. We spend an extraordinary amount of time on ranging. We're very good at testing it. I say these things because, you know, we're a kitchen and a joinery business, and we think in our heads about joinery driving footfall, joinery being the place where customers start working. They do flooring, they do doors, they do skirting, they do wall paneling, and then they start creeping into doing kitchens, and we've got to keep on getting people into doing these trades. There is a bit of a thing here about, you know, AI is going to change jobs and markets and so on. AI is not yet fit in kitchens in my mind.
You know, we are keen on doing a lot of great work about how you build your business, and we've got a business builder program on in Howdens at the minute, where we want to encourage people to go and start their own businesses in this trade space, and you can make a fantastic living out of the fit and out of the product on margin. We feel we're comfortable with the categories, and each one of those categories we feel we can grow in. We're only 24% of the kitchen market by value. 75% of the market that we're not having right now, we've got a significant opportunity, you know, I think we're upsetting our competitors as we progress forward with that.
You know, out there, you've got a number of competitors who are either, you know, querying what they're doing, and they're lashing out on price, or they're, you know, trying to make it work, and you've got some people under new ownership. You know, just chasing down a price rate is not the way to win in this, in this market. I'm also excited about what we're doing digitally, you know, and, you know, preparation for, you know, the future. People will think about how they design and plan and you know, do think different things on kitchens in the future. Then, I suppose, the final part of it is the international piece of the business, and we are making progress in France.
I'm excited about the work that we've been doing on the estate there. We've got two divisions that are flying. We had a third of the depots that performed incredibly well there last year. Unfortunately, we've got a third that need work. We adjusted some of them, and we're going through manager by manager, and under Seb's leadership, you know, we will get to a good place. Ireland, you know, we've gone in. We don't offer trade credit accounts in Ireland, interestingly. We just have gone in and done cash. It's not held us back in any way because the proposition is so fresh to the market and word gets around.
You know, I was explaining to the teams, I've been down to Wexford to do the opening of our Wexford depot, right, the most beautiful plum site right in the middle of Wexford, and we will dominate the market. You know, the depot only just opened, it had 150 accounts already opened. It opened 3 when I was stood there. The manager and the team were exceptional. You know, we're really making a difference and understanding, you know, more and more how this model lands well. Because we're able to give new depot managers to our business tools and kit that help them run the business a bit more than we may not have been able to do before. They get daily traders, and they get a better stock management system, and they can do live stock.
They're supported with online activity. They've got PALM now. They're well supported from, you know, an availability point of view, and I think we've become better and better at doing that. I think overall in the business, we've become strong at sort of pairing up. It used to feel like a sort of supply and a trade division. It feels very much like one business where we think right up and down. Even in France, Seb sits on the exec. He's part of the team. We've even done a thing where we're twinning depots in France with U.K. depots in the way sort of towns are twinned. We're doing that. A U.K. manager, you know, will work with a French manager, plus an interpreter, and build a relationship together. Bit of a long answer. Apologies.
Thank you.
Hi, there.
Please.
Morning. Ben Varrow from RBC. I'll do two as well, please. The first one on the market share in the U.K., could you provide some more detail on how that's developing at the different price points? The second question is building on the France topic. What do you need to see there to start accelerating the depot rollout again?
Yeah. I think one of the things on the, on the market share and, you know, you're right in price points, 'cause sometimes we think of families, you know, as you go up and down the architecture, and what is brilliant about our offering is it all sits on a common carcass platform. It's a bit like, you know, the chassis of a car business, and you know, you can move your way up and down, and if you want to hit your price point by putting a lower price door, standard carcass, and then invest in a solid surface work surface, you know, that might be what you want to do. We've seen growth at all price points.
We've seen growth at opening price points all the way through difficult times, 'cause we're sort of untouchable down at that bottom end. Many of our kitchens will not even make it into customers' homes because you'll find them in universities and council houses and, you know, where there is genuine churn. We've brought some innovation at opening price. Mid price, we've grown. It's been tougher because everybody's at that mid-price thing, some people throw on credit, consumer credit, and that type of thing. We have stayed ahead by innovating and being faster than others to market, and bringing things like metallics into some ranges that, you know, might be sort of needing that kind of innovation.
The best end of the market for us has been a combination of just beautifully styled product that I think is better quality than the independents'. You'd expect me to have a Howdens kitchen, but it's what I've put in my house. The Paint to Order offering is just beautiful, and, you know, with a solid surface, good lighting. You walk to any one of the independents around where I live in London, and I'm thinking, "It ain't as good as what I've put in my home." I think more and more people are discovering that, you know, "Do I go to an independent and I spend GBP 60 ,000, GBP 80,000, or do I go to Howdens?
I've got a really strong relationship with my builder, and I'm doing it for, you know, considerably less." I think you'll just see us continue to grow in that space of the market, and you'll see us doing, you know, work like this that just makes people reassess the brand, you know, people sniff out value. We've done well at all price points, and, you know, we think you wouldn't particularly pull out one over another. We're just pleased with how we're doing. What do we want to see in France? I want to see more consistent delivery across all of the regions. We're very clear with that.
More depots in profit, you know, we've got and had to put some fixed cost in France that will only be covered when the depots gets to, you know, the depot estate gets to a certain level of turnover. We're pleased with how it's progressing, and we've made some choices about depots that perhaps we opened too quickly post-COVID, when we were growing very, very fast. We've got all our eyes with attention on this new, smaller format that we're doing there. I'm very pleased with the team, and the level of energy in that business is fantastic. Jackie and I went over to do their year-end celebration, it was.
Fantastic.
It was electric, yeah.
Shane Carberry from Goodbody. Just two from me. firstly, you've mentioned a couple of times the competitive market. Could you just expand on that a little bit more? Is it the pricing points that you made earlier, or is there some kind of shift in industry dynamics we should be aware of? Second, just kind of a longer term one. When I think about this business in kind of five years' time, and I think about the mix of products, obviously doing a lot more in the bedrooms, doors, other joinery components, how big a portion of the pie could that be going forward?
Yeah, I think, when we say competitive market, you know, I suppose we think about price, and we think about availability of product, and we think about product innovation. If I split it down like that, and I think about product innovation, nobody is anywhere near us from a product point of view. I think eight years ago, when I turned up in the business, I think people were ahead of us. What we've done with innovation, and find the gap, and testing products, and bringing more products to market, we're leading. We're not following at all. With that, and with our availability, you know, the combination of those two, it's a very, very tough combination to fight against.
Of course, if you've got people trying to get any kind of volume to put over their fixed costs, you know, they're going to come out fighting. January is the time. It's very, very difficult period for a retailer. If they don't have a bit of success in January, it's a long, long journey up until the summer for them. I say, yeah, I say competitive in that context. You know, when I think of our depot managers, Austin's language is, "No kitchen left behind." We're very, very clear about that. I think, if you think forward to this business, you know, we're pretty good at sticking to our knitting. We're pretty good at realizing, you know, this is the customer first, and in our, in our case, trade customer, trade customer all the way.
The stronger you are with your trade relationships, the stronger the business, you know, will become. They do well, we do well, and we appreciate entrepreneurialism deeply. We appreciate it in the depots, and we appreciate it amongst our supply base as well, those who come first to market. You know, James has got a suppliers' conference in about a month, and, you know, that'll be a big topic for all of us to talk about. I think the business will always be, you know, kitchen-centric, kitchen dominant. You know, I think you'll see, you know, innovation and, you know, new ways of shopping online, and AI, and, you know, scanning the room with your phone to help develop plans.
We see these as opportunities, to, you know, help our design consultants or help customers get an image of where they want to go to, but we think it's important that, you know, we keep going with our business model.
Good enough?
That's good.
Thank you. Charlie Campbell at Stifel. I've got sort of two. The first one was on the efficiency gains. Sort of GBP 41 million in the year. 14 of that's from suppliers. Just, does that not get harder and harder as the more to get out of that bucket? The 27 from kind of manufacturing efficiency, does that get more difficult as you're moving towards the new Runcorn? The other question, just point of detail, really. There's a GBP 6 million sort of exceptional around France. Is that the end of that, or does that kind of run on for a bit more as you further kind of arrange the branches?
Let me take both of those. The efficiency gains, we've had, you know, a good result last year, say, 14 in cost of goods sold and 27 in OpEx. I think, as we go into the budget, we see that there were, you know, inflationary headwinds coming again this year. We've guided that at around GBP 30 million, and it's across a number of areas. Little bit of timber inflation, a little bit of, we see people inflation and also some property inflation, particularly around London rents.
We will always look to offset inflation with efficiency projects, and I think, you know, one of the things that positive with Howdens, it's got a very strong muscle in this space, and it's one that we already have a tracker on the costs, and we already have a lot of the projects identified. I, you know, I feel confident that we can make a good dent in that inflationary amount again this year, and it's across multiple projects. I look to Julian here. Across manufacturing, it'll be things like waste reduction, more efficient use of labor. A good examples across logistics, it could be thinking about how we can optimize deliveries out to depots. That's another area that's a big project for this year.
I think we've got good confidence that we'll certainly dent a lot of that inflationary pressure this year. On the cost for the French depots that we were looking to close over the next two years, it's a GBP 6 million charge in OpEx, and we don't see any further amount coming through at this point.
Sure.
Shall I go ahead? Ami Galla from Citi. Couple of questions from me. The first one was just understanding the bundles that typically a customer takes in. Can you talk about some of the attachment rates of flooring currently, and is there scope to penetrate that further? The second question was on the pricing model that you are talking about today. What sort of information do you think does the depot manager now have at handy, which he previously did not have? I mean.
Yeah.
... just understanding more in detail as to.
Yeah.
What is different today with the model that they have in place?
Yeah.
The last question was just on the maturity of the existing network in the U.K. Often, we've talked about the potential of the younger branches to kind of come up to the mature level. Can you give us the range, as we sit here today, of what the mature U.K. depot looks like, and where's the opportunity as we think over the next couple of years?
Yeah. I'm sort of rethinking what maturity is for our business because, you know, when I, when I rocked up here, people said, "Oh, they'll mature in seven years." We've thought of all these initiatives that we've brought into the business, like solid work, servicing better kitchens. You know, you grow your account base. We've been more efficient in the warehouse, you know. I was telling Matthew Ingle about our best depot there last year and where it had got to, and he nearly fell off his chair because it was about twice the level that he'd seen before. He offered the manager, if he hits his number here of the GBP 10 million this year, he's offering him a case of champagne, which he's, you know, very thoughtful about.
I think we've just got such a long way to go even at, you know, our first depot hitting a big milestone like that. I don't know where the top end of maturity is. We've got a lot of work. You know, if you think of the range between sort of GBP 10 million down to a depot, you know, at GBP 1 million, you've got a wide range there. A lot of it's down to the capabilities of the manager and making sure the manager's empowered to develop the local relationships. Of course, there's area and all the rest, one of our depots, we talk a bit about, you know, in Great Yarmouth, it was a very big job in our peak trading period.
It's his sort of thing that he does each year. Half of his catchment's in the sea, but he's the biggest, you know, he's the biggest depot. I would say we've just got really significant opportunity, even when this business runs out of space and depots, we hit 1,000, we will still grow, the like-for-like will still grow because we see so many opportunities in that. Your question about the pricing model is a good one, because our range counter's grown, given XDC, we put in XDC to make sure that product's available.
We've become very clear with Richie's leadership from supply chain about what's right to hold in stock in a depot and what's right not to hold in stock in a depot because it might have high value, it might create a long discontinued problem later on. Our shape of our stock in our depot is brilliant. We gave the depots tools to develop that, and we call the system TED. Those of you who've been around some of our visits and depots, we often demonstrate it. Through meetings that I'd taken with some of our managers, some of the managers said: "Could we not use the same sort of thinking, where we can look by SKU, balance it out, and bring the same thinking into pricing?" We went back and built PALM.
What it gives our depot managers is understanding of where their price-volume mix, per SKU, per range-... sort it all out, and they can see where they're at versus their region. We feed in local pricing data, and it gives them real confidence that they're not only too cheap on some stuff or they're not too expensive on some stuff. When we've got promotions going in that we do from a group, from a sort of Rooster point of view, they can press a button and accept them. They're going to override them and not do it. All of this is to empower our depot managers, not take power away from them, 'cause that's, you know, it's our managers operating locally.
It's using tech to make sure they're better enabled to make the right pricing decisions for customers, and confidence levels go up with it as well. Hopefully, that explains that. You did ask about flooring and attachment rates. We got loads of room. We're only fourth in the UK on flooring. We're number one in kitchens, we're number one in doors. We've done some great work on own brand and own ranges. It's a priority for us and to sell more flooring this year. Our attachment rate's not bad with kitchens, but there's lots more to do.
Yeah, hi there, Geoff Lowery, Rothschild & Co Redburn. A question really around your supply business. If you had to rank what it really does for you across those buckets of product exclusivity, flexibility, resilience, sheer cost advantage, what would that ranking really look like? I guess the second question is, you've obviously invested considerable amounts in that back-end infrastructure and transformed it in a wonderfully positive way, but we haven't really seen it at this scale, at this efficiency in an upmarket. You know, in a theoretical scenario where your volumes were +20%, say, would we see a meaningful leverage of a fixed cost component there? Different issue, what you did with it, but, you know, the maths of it, would it be a kicker on your margin?
Yeah. I think when I was looking at from Howdens' from the outside, and I was running Screwfix at the time, and I was going around all the U.K. depots, I remember having a conversation with the guy that I'd taken over running Screwfix from, and he said, "You know what? Businesses often have strengths, and it's clear to me that Howdens' strength is in its manufacturing capability." You know, 'cause you've got some incredible front-end implementation in the depots. The strength, I think the big strength of this model is our vertical integration, our supply, our exclusivity, the cost advantage it gives us, our nimbleness around us, our ability to keep raw materials untouched and then flex in. You know, we do things that I have never seen other businesses be able to do because of our agility.
That's at scale on big product, but also, when we go and do a testing, a small testing thing, we've got James has got in his capabilities, a small batch production unit. The amount of work that batch production unit does for us around building out extra doors, flexing up, flexing down, making small batches that we go out and test in markets, it gives us an agility of a Zara. I think it gives us fundamental, you know, lower cost base, where we can take higher margins in the market. I think we probably demonstrated our strength when we came out of COVID, and we were able to flex up so quickly, and we hardly missed a beat.
Our service levels weren't at 99.98, but they weren't very far off, even though volumes dramatically lifted. You know, you saw the business started making 20% on sales. So it's a cash machine when you push volume through it. I mean, there isn't anybody who could manufacture this level of volume for us, so we need another 1 million cabinets, hence the investment in Runcorn. But I suppose we think about panel manufacturing, where we're making. You know, we're moving beyond raw materials, but we're leaving stuff as work in progress. You know, we build those items up to deliver out to customers through our peak trading period. I think it's absolutely fundamental, and it's incredibly hard to replicate what we've done.
I just sort of add a wee, just a wee bit of color to it. We, I went to our Runcorn Christmas party, and I took my wife, which was an eye-opener for her, I can tell you. The feeling of our 1,000 manufacturing personnel at Runcorn at that party, because we had purchased the site, made very clear what our plans were, that this is a big future. I stood up in front of them and said, "You know, you do a fantastic job for us. You make 3,000,000 cabinets. The trouble is, I need another 1,000,000." You know, I think they're un- it's very common to meet people in our Runcorn site that have got 20, 30, 40 years' experience working for us. You can't just...
One of our suppliers, EGGER, Michael EGGER Senior, who, you know, makes most of our chipboard for us. He said to me, "Andrew, you can buy the assets, but you can't buy the people." I think it's that sort of combination of that that's very powerful for a business. I don't know if I've answered you well enough, Geoff, but it's fundamental to us.
Thanks for taking my question. [Zaim Mika] from JP Morgan. The first is on the new product sales. I think you said 29% in recent years, quite excited about what's to come. Is that a number that you feel will tick up in the coming years? Secondly, obviously, very strong on the gross profit margin in 2025. Can you think about the moving parts into 2026, please? Thank you.
Yeah, I sort of feel comfortable that, you know, that 2025, it'll move up and down, depending on what we do. I feel comfortable with where we're at. When you bring new range into a business, you've got to make sure people understand it, the depot teams understand it. We do have a big exercise in James' team, we build an expo. Some of you have been up to the expo at Howden, and we've got an expo at Runcorn, and we're opening up our first expo at Watford next month, worth going and having a look at. And we use these spaces to show off our product offering, and you've got to train it into the team. There's only so much a business can consume. You don't want to throw too much range in and it not land well.
I think our cadence of about 2024 feels pretty good on the kitchens, where is the majority of the profitability is. You will see us do more on own labels, you'll see us do more innovation on outside the kitchen areas. Kitchen's a fashion business. We've got to stay up on the front foot on it. Colors change, styles change very rapidly. We're pleased with the margins, but margins, we've got to leave enough room for the managers to flex it. We did well last year. I think Austin incentivized the teams incredibly well last year to deliver margin and volume. We all understand the rules on it, but, you know, if the kitchen comes out and it's cheaper, we will always take it, and, you know, we will develop the margins on the other side.
You know, we're comfortable with our industry-leading margins. We don't chase the %, we chase cash. We like cash. I would say, you know, probably more of the same this year would be my guess. Yeah.
We've got time for one more question, do we?
Okay. Hi, it's Priyal Woolf here from Jefferies. I've just got two questions on the international division. I appreciate you said that in the U.K., you're rethinking what maturity even means, but can you give us any sense of what the maturity timeline looks like in France? Just in the context that obviously you're slowing down on the depot openings, focusing more on getting to profitability there. The second one is just a quick one. Obviously, you're expanding in Ireland, you will be again at some point in France. Is finding the correct sort of sites any sort of obstacle yet at this point in time?
I think the quick answer on the second is no. We've been able to find the right sort of price, location, mix, and very similar type of setup on trading estates in Ireland. When we go into these secondary towns, we, you know, we're getting good value and we're getting prominent locations. We've said, you know, around about 40. I don't know, it might be more, but, you know, business of 40 in Southern Ireland would feel pretty good to us, and we'll be about halfway there by the back of this year. You know, loads of growth to put on it. In France, yeah, we were very clear. We're putting the foot on the ball. We're going to get the operations absolutely where they want to be.
This year is an important year for the French team, you know, next year, the one after it will be the same, but we wanna, we want to see that business getting, you know, to break even in a sensible time frame. We understand, you know, that happens when you push more depots and top to, you know, to cover the fixed costs. You know, we want every depot in profitability in France in the near term. There's one question that we have to take because you've tried about 15x now.
My, my arm is so tired from going up and down.
I hope it's a good question then.
I've got loads, I'll keep it to two. Wren has bought Moores, takes them into the trade part of the kitchen market. Do you think that changes the way about how they, you know, attempt to broaden their addressable market in the U.K. at all? That was the first one. The second one was on the small branch depot formats you're going to start opening in France. Should we be looking to see those pop up in the U.K. anytime soon?
Yeah, I don't. Look, it's interesting, the Wren business have tried several times to open up a trade business to be like us. Often they've opened up, you know, a specific site and, you know, we get wind of it, and we release margin criteria to our depot managers and, you know, extinguish any potential flame coming out. Yeah, on the contracts piece, you know, we like routine, repetitive, repeating, sort of maintenance type of businesses that we would sort of consider contract. The house building stuff, we're happy to leave that to somebody else. You know, I don't want large, long production runs that disturb high-margin supply to trade customers. I, you know, I think it could distract us.
We're very happy to take local, smaller, you know, regional house builders if the margin's right for us, but I'm not looking to chase after big house builders. You know, Symphony is better at doing that than us. They're better set up to do that than us. The market's big. I don't know what their plans are, but I don't think it's going to change anything in the near future. Small depots in the U.K., I think we just It's more important for us to be in the catchment than not be in the catchment. Sometimes we go in, and we'll take a site that's a wee bit bigger or a bit smaller. You'd certainly see us doing a wee bit being a bit, wee bit more curious in London.
Of course, we've got the capabilities to do it. We've become much better at how we merchandise depots, built all that skill, we're amazing at how we fulfill and supply depots, and we know what to put in the depots. It's the right type of product, you can cope on smaller spaces. We're just about to open up in the arches at Waterloo, that'd be worth popping down and having a wee look there. You know, limited parking, we think is going to be a flyer. I think we'll call it quits there, if that's okay. Thanks very much for your time.