Can I just thank everyone here for coming to join our Capital Markets event here at Saddler's Hall this afternoon? My name is Trevor Harvey, and I'm the CEO of Stelrad Group PLC. We've got several topics we want to talk to you about, but before we get into those, I wanted to introduce you to a few new faces beyond myself and Leigh, who some of you may not yet have met. Namely, Chris Humphreys, our Strategic Marketing Director, who will be talking to you about our market positioning and the opportunities we see in premiumization. Mike Brady, our External Consultant from Eden McCallum, who we commissioned to explore that premiumization market for us in the U. K. David Taylor, our Group Operations Director, who will be talking to you about our world-class manufacturing and distribution capabilities.
Koen Manneerts, our European Commercial Director, who will be talking about the opportunities that decarbonization poses for us. Also with us today, although not presenting, are Sarah Riley, our Chief People Officer, Ali Eroğlu, who is our Commercial Director of Termo Teknik, and Claire Burns, who is our Group Finance Director. As you will see from the short biographies under the pictures, this is a highly experienced, long-tenured management team. Turning to the next slide, you can broadly split this afternoon into two parts. Firstly, the structural opportunities that we see in premiumization and decarbonization, followed by, after an all-important coffee break, the competitive advantages that we have as a business. We will also clearly outline our medium-term financial objectives. But before we get to that, I want to quickly recap on who we are, for some of you who are newer to the Stelrad story.
Stelrad is Europe's leading retail manufacturer. We listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 and have taken significant market share since. Our two key segments are continental Europe and the U.K. and Ireland, with a smaller segment in Turkey. But that, to me, is secondary. Who we really are is a group of 1,400 exceptional employees with deep knowledge, understanding, and experience of this market. Our market leadership hasn't happened by itself. It's the result of a conscious effort on behalf of all of them to drive us there, and that is what will drive us forward in the future. Our core product is hydronic heat emitters, steel panel radiators, where we have 20% market share across Europe and are Europe's number one.
The group has a comprehensive portfolio of heat emitters suitable for all heating systems: core steel panel radiators that everyone is familiar with, designer ranges which feature three main product types, premium steel panel radiators, column radiators, and decorative steel tubular radiators. We'll be talking about the premiumization opportunities for Stelrad in the designer radiator market later this afternoon. Hybrid systems, which are currently primarily suited to the mainland European market, whether it's wider heat pump adoption, and then our electric radiators, which, like hybrid products, are important additions for us as net-zero legislation evolves. Again, we will be talking about the opportunities a decarbonized future provides for Stelrad a little later on. In total, we have over 50,000 SKUs, giving us a hugely broad customer appeal and allowing us to continue to capture market share no matter what the segment or heat source.
Core to how we grow and evolve are our four strategic pillars, which we first told you about at the time of our IPO: growing market share, whether that be organically or through acquisitions. Improving our product mix, including in premium and design ranges, to enhance our contribution per radiator and margin. Optimizing our routes to market to ensure we're capturing customers in an evolving market. And positioning effectively for decarbonization to ensure that we continue to be the provider of choice as legislation and customer needs evolve. As we go through this afternoon, everything you hear about will be linked to these, and these are what will drive our financial framework for the medium- term. Bringing everything together for you is this slide. We have an attractive market opportunity with positive market dynamics and a significant installed base.
We have two structural growth drivers that will drive our product mix and margin, enabling above-market growth, and we have three competitive advantages that put us in prime position to take advantage of these market opportunities, namely the flexibility of our manufacturing facilities and processes, our leading levels of product availability, and finally, our market positioning. Taken together, the group's market opportunity, structural growth drivers, and competitive advantages translate into a set of ambitious medium-term targets that we announced this morning, and that Leigh will discuss in more detail later on, and without further ado, I'll now pass you on to Chris Humphreys, who will give you an overview of the hydronic market and why we see premiumization to be an attractive opportunity for above-market growth. Thanks, Chris.
Hello, everyone. Thank you, Trevor. Firstly, I'd like to provide some market context with an overview of the European home heating and heat emitters market, our view on the key macro trends that are driving demand, and an outline of routes to market across our three geographical territories and how these have evolved since our IPO. Hydronic systems dominate the European heating market, and they will do so over the long term. Of the 321 million homes across Europe with central heating, 93% of them have hydronic heating systems, representing an installed hydronic heat emitter base of over 1.8 billion radiators. In turn, steel panel radiators dominate the hydronic heat emitter market. Of the 41 million units sold in total in 2023, 56%, or around 23 million units, were steel panel radiators.
With an estimated 80% of 2050's building stock already in existence today, regardless of what heat source is installed in the future, there'll be a significant opportunity over the long- term for replacement in hydronic radiators. As a result, replacement is the first of our three key macro trends and represents the main driver of market volume. Over the past 10 years, RMI demand has generally represented just under 60% of total steel panel volume, but in 2023, this fell to 54% as a result of the challenging macroeconomic environment negatively impacting household spending. Over the next three years, replacement demand is expected to grow at a faster rate than residential new build, returning to a more typical share level of 59% in 2027. Increased consumer focus on home design as economic conditions improve has the potential to drive profitable growth in higher added value, premium, and designer radiators.
This is especially true in the U.K., which has low levels of premium steel panel penetration compared to our other core markets. We have a significant opportunity to leverage our strong U.K. market leadership position to develop this highly profitable product segment. Coming to the third key macro trend, this is accelerating demand for decarbonized heating systems, a trend which will increasingly gain momentum over the longer term. While the recent economic backdrop has led governments to delay more ambitious shorter-term initiatives, long-term net-zero targets remain unchanged. These will drive the installation of higher output, higher value conventional radiators alongside hybrid-assisted convection heat emitters and direct electrical radiators. Access to market is a critical success factor in the radiator market, and it's one of Stelrad's key competitive advantages.
As radiators are a highly space-intensive product requiring a large, locally stocked range, merchants and retailers are generally limited to stocking one or two brands. The choice of which radiator manufacturer to stock is a critical decision because there are high costs to change supplier across a distribution network. This favors powerful brands with proven track records, able to provide high levels of product availability and customer service, and also able to provide access to future revenue streams through project specification. As a result, Stelrad has strong long-term relationships with all major distributors and key specifiers, including housing developers, contractors, and installers across its core markets. These create high barriers to entry for our competitors. We have a strong track record for identifying emerging distribution trends and capitalizing on this potential through our powerful multi-brand strategy.
Now, looking from left to right across this slide, in the U.K., national and independent merchants lead specification-oriented sectors like new build and social housing, while new merchants and retailers focus primarily on private residential RMI. Recently, there's also been growth in consumers purchasing directly from the manufacturer, particularly for designer radiators. Moving to Europe, regional and local distributors dominate in many markets, but there are key national and pan-European players, and there's increasing evidence of consolidation. Online channels are primarily controlled by distributors, while the importance of retailers varies from country to country. Lastly, in Turkey, the distribution market is fragmented and highly regional, with direct supply from manufacturer to trade shops and new build installers a notable feature. This is because little stock is held in the distribution system, and the primary responsibility for product availability rests with manufacturers.
Now, I talked a little earlier about two key structural macro trends which will drive demand for higher margin, higher added value products and enable Stelrad to grow ahead of the market. The first of these was increasing demand for premium steel panel and other designer radiators, and what I'd like to do now is explore this opportunity in more detail, starting with an overview of why improving product mix is important to Stelrad, how we've progressed with this key strategic objective in recent years, and why the U.K. market provides significant potential for profitable future growth. Earlier this year, we engaged management consultant Eden McCallum to research the U.K. designer radiator market and provide strategic insight, following on from our successful collaboration in 2017. Lead consultant Mike Brady is here today to share some of the findings and high-level recommendations with you.
Now, as you can see from the chart, premium steel panel and other designer radiators are extremely profitable products, offering much higher levels of contribution compared to standard steel panel radiators. We see a 5x uplift for our premium steel panel products, and in the case of other designer radiators, such as our column or decorative steel tubular ranges, we earn double. The acquisition of Radiators S.p.A. in 2022 provided Stelrad with a comprehensive manufactured range of designer products, notably the popular column radiator design. Leveraging Stelrad's unrivaled channel access in our core markets will enable us to grow profitably outside the group's traditional steel panel product portfolio. As you can see from the relative levels of profitability, Stelrad has a position of sustainable competitive advantage in premium steel panel radiators, which are based on our standardized core heat emitter design.
David will talk more about this core design and our low-cost manufacturing base later this afternoon. Stelrad's commercial innovation was to use its high-volume, low-cost emitter as the basis for a readily available designer radiator, capable of directly replacing standard steel panels and offering exceptional value for money compared to other designer ranges. We've been focused on growing designer radiator volume for many years, and since 2015, this approach has driven an overall volume increase of 264%. In 2023, despite extremely challenging market conditions, premium steel panel share of total steel panel radiator volume reached a record high of 6.2%. Overall, our designer mix in 2023 rose to 14.9%, a two and a 2.5% points increase compared to the previous year, and up 9.7% points since 2015. This represented a compound annual growth rate of 12.9% between 2015 and 2023.
As you can see from the chart, following consistent organic gains since 2015, the acquisition of Raditors S.p.A. has accelerated our growth and significantly improved Stelrad's designer radiator mix. The U.K. market provides Stelrad with considerable potential for growth. As the number one player with a market-leading brand, we're well positioned to capitalize in one of Europe's largest designer radiator markets. In recent years, our unrivaled access to market channels has enabled us to develop premium steel panel volume with Kingfisher's new merchant operation, Screwfix, without disrupting our traditional merchant customers. And we've recently secured additional column radiator business with Screwfix, leveraging Radiators S.p.A.'s product portfolio. We've also developed our own e-commerce channel, Stelrad.com, aware that consumers are increasingly sourcing designer radiators themselves directly from manufacturers and importers.
Between the first half of 2021 and the first half of 2024, revenue through Stelrad.com has increased on average by 38% per annum, with designer products representing over 50% of all radiators sold through this channel. Compared to other European markets, the U.K. is underpenetrated in premium steel panel radiators, where Stelrad has competitive advantage and high levels of profitability. In eight of our 10 core markets, premium steel panel has between 5%-26% penetration of the total steel panel radiator market. In the U.K., as you can see from the chart, premium panels represented just 2.6% share of all steel panel radiators sold in 2023, versus an average of 7.1% across Stelrad's 10 core markets. Guided by our recent work with Eden McCallum, we'll continue to leverage our leading market position, a number one brand, to maximize this profitable opportunity through both traditional and emerging channels to market.
I'd now like to hand you over to Mike Brady, who will share the key findings of this research with you, and I'll then outline Stelrad's designer radiator strategy and future growth potential.
Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I get into the meat of what I want to talk about in terms of playing back the market insights from the recent work, I just want to give you a quick introduction to Eden McCallum, so we're a management consulting firm. We work across lots of sectors, but we do have broad and deep experience within the heating and plumbing sector, so prior to the most recent piece of work undertaken with Stelrad, we previously worked with Stelrad in 2017 and 2013, and in the broader heating and plumbing space, we've worked in boilers, boiler accessories, and with plumbers' merchants.
From a personal perspective, I first worked with Chris and Trevor in 2008, so 16 years ago. If we now move on to our most recent piece of work with Stelrad, this was a market survey that we undertook between July and September of this year. This was a repeat with some refinements of the work that we did back in 2017. Today, I want to update you on insights and implications from this survey. Specifically, we'll cover the following. In terms of key findings, what's changed since 2017 and what remains important? Secondly, in terms of implications, what are the potential implications for Stelrad's strategy? How might Stelrad flex its strategy for market and consumer developments? And then thirdly, in terms of size of prize, what might be the size of prize from doing this in terms of designer sales?
I'm going to cover off key findings, and then Chris will pick up on the second two bits, implications and target size of prize. But before I move on, I'd like to orient you all on the rigor of the work undertaken. So both in 2017 and in 2024, this year, the survey was a significant piece of work. So we aimed in both years for a mix of qualitative insight from interviews and empirical validation from quantitative surveys. In the 2024 work, we conducted around three dozen interviews across merchants and other channel partners, competitors, consumers, and installers of various types. And the surveys received more than 1,000 consumer responses and nearly 500 full responses from installers. Next slide, please. So over the next half a dozen slides or so, we'll brief you on the key findings from the market survey. Specifically, we'll make the following points.
Firstly, the consumer is the key decision maker on whether a designer radiator is fitted and which designer radiator is fitted. Secondly, that said, installers remain important and are increasingly likely to recommend specific radiators and often designer radiators. Thirdly, designer radiators are not a niche product. This is a really important point. They have broad appeal across income groups. Fourthly, consumers are increasingly likely to buy designer radiators themselves. And finally, while merchants remain the core purchasing channel for installers, but direct-to-consumer is the fastest growing channel for designer radiators. So now we'll step through each of these points slide by slide. So firstly, the consumer is the key decision maker on choice of designer radiator. So the chart on the left-hand side here shows the percentage of consumers who received advice in their last designer radiator purchase and the nature of that advice.
That is, did they get advice on the design of the radiator or the technical specification or both or neither? And what we can see is that the consumer is the key decision maker, with just two-thirds of consumers choosing the design of the radiator themselves, with the remaining one-third of consumers either receiving advice on design matters or delegating the choice of radiator to the installer. Now, the data that we see in the slide here is taken from the consumer survey, and consumer interviews were also very much aligned with this insight. As we can see with the comment from Stephanie in Kent, where she chose the design of the radiator she wanted and just checked practical matters with the installer.
Now, the installer survey also confirms the direction of this analysis, with installers claiming that fewer than 30% of consumers ask for advice on radiator design. Next slide. But installers do remain important and are now more likely to recommend a specific radiator than before. So what this data taken from the installer survey shows is the nature of advice and recommendations given by installers in 2017 and in 2024. And what we see is that where designer radiators are fitted, just over 50% of installers will have recommended a specific type of radiator, which is well up on 2017. And installer interviews indicate that installers will typically price a job based upon a basic radiator installation, but then recommend the installation of a designer radiator as an upsell, as the quotes on the right-hand side from a couple of our builder interviews indicate. Next slide.
Nearly two-thirds of those recommendations from installers include designer radiators. On this slide, we have data from the consumer survey, which shows the sort of advice and recommendations that the consumer received on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side, where the consumer received a recommendation, what type of radiator was recommended. What the data shows is that where the consumer received a recommendation, nearly two-thirds of recommendations included designer radiators. Next slide. Now, we use the term designer radiators to denote anything which is not a standard steel panel radiator or towel warmer. This may make designer radiators sound like an exclusive high-end product, but the reality is designer radiators appeal across income groups. Interviews indicate that consumers are willing to pay for the right radiator.
From the survey, what we see is that 49% of respondents claim to have bought a designer radiator in the last radiator purchase, with this proportion dropping no lower than 40% among even the lowest income group, so among those less than 25,000 household income. Next slide. What this slide shows is the proportion of consumers who bought their own designer radiators in 2017 and in 2024. And the data on the left-hand side is the consumer view, and on the right-hand side is the installer view. And in both cases, what we see is consumers are more likely to buy their own radiator than in 2017. Next slide. So these shifting buying patterns alter the importance of different channels. So direct-to-consumer is increasingly important for consumers. Merchants are still core for installers.
So on the left-hand side, what we see is that direct-to-consumer has jumped, from the eagle-eyed amongst you, from 2%-14%. So that's the main driver on the left-hand side. Right-hand side, merchants remain key. So next slide. So just recapping. The consumer is the key decision maker. Installers remain important but are increasingly likely to recommend specific radiators. Designer radiators are not a niche product. They have broad appeal across income groups. Consumers are increasingly likely to buy designer radiators themselves. So those are key findings. To inform Stelrad's strategy, we need to understand what barriers to purchase of designer radiators Stelrad needs to overcome and what are the designer radiator choice factors that Stelrad can leverage. Next slide. So to understand barriers to purchase, we need to understand the consumer conversion funnel. So this is the conversion funnel from awareness through consideration to purchase.
Starting with awareness, what percentage of consumers are aware of designer radiators? Moving to consideration, what percentage of consumers considered purchasing a designer radiator? What percentage of consumers actually bought a designer radiator? Next slide. In designer radiators, the biggest leakage is from consideration to purchase. Virtually all consumers are aware of designer radiators. Consideration is at 82%, and purchase is down at 52%. The biggest drop-off is between consideration and purchase. If we now look at reasons for leakage, this gives us an idea of where Stelrad should focus. On the left-hand side, we see the main reasons for leakage from awareness to consideration. On the right-hand side, from consideration to purchase.
And what we see on the left-hand side is the main reason for leakage from awareness to consideration is the installer not recommending an alternative to a standard steel panel. Then on the right-hand side, what we see is the biggest leakage is cost or budget. However, here, it should be noted that consumers typically overestimate premium panel price. And once they are made aware of the price, 50% of them say they would consider it in the future. So there's an element of perception versus reality there. Then if we move on to choice factors, design is the key choice factor, but there are also spikes for premium panel which Stelrad can leverage. So what we see here is that design is the most important factor in choice of designer radiators, perhaps not surprisingly. But there are spikes here.
So we have spikes in terms of space saving, energy saving, blend unnoticed into room. And also, it's worth noting the price of radiator is actually not so different between premium panel and standard as a driver of choosing premium panel over any other radiator. So I'd now like to hand back over to Chris, who will summarize Stelrad's designer radiator strategy and the growth potential in designer over the coming years.
Thanks, Mike. So by joining the dots between barriers to purchase and key choice factors, Stelrad is pursuing a clear strategy to capitalize on this structural growth opportunity, driving demand for higher margin, higher added value products. This is a three-part strategy which builds on Stelrad's existing strengths and competitive advantages. Specifically, we will leverage Stelrad trade strengths, boost Stelrad consumer appeal, and optimize our routes to market.
This means supporting installers and merchant staff in the upsell process and ensuring installer marketing addresses the barriers to recommending designer radiators, focusing on key messages around ease of installation, high heat output, and affordability. We will optimize the consumer journey on stelrad.com, creating a house of brands which leverages the strong existing positioning of group brands, including Stelrad, Henrad, De'Longhi, and Hudevad. In support of this and to reach consumers at key consideration points, we'll invest in targeted consumer marketing activities through refocused marketing spend. And in line with our key strategic objective of optimizing routes to market, we'll continue to assess opportunities to broaden and deepen channel partnerships to keep up with consumers' and installers' evolving buying patterns. Through the effective execution of this clear three-part strategy, we believe that Stelrad will grow ahead of the designer radiator market in the coming years.
If we look at Stelrad designer radiator sales volume from 2017- 2021 versus the market, you'll see that the market grew by 4% CAGR over the period, whereas Stelrad grew by 8%. Looking ahead, the market for designer radiators is forecast to grow at 5% from 2023. And we believe that Stelrad has the potential to grow at 10%, double that rate, between now and the end of the decade. Having considered the opportunities that we see in premiumization, I'd now like to hand you over to Koen, who will outline the potential for heating system decarbonization to drive further profitable growth for Stelrad.
Thank you, Chris. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Koen Manneerts, and I've worked for Stelrad for 25 years. Over that time, I've witnessed the emergence of decarbonization as both a growing trend among customers and an attractive long-term opportunity for the business. In this section, I'm going to talk to you about why we believe radiators play an important role in decarbonization, why we see it as an attractive opportunity, and what we are doing to optimize our product offering to deliver profitable growth from this opportunity. Across all our markets, decarbonization initiatives are being driven by government commitments to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. This legislative tailwind presents Stelrad with a clear opportunity for profitable growth with higher value products. Through membership of the European Heating Industry and Energy Utilities Alliance Trade Associations, Stelrad has advanced notice of proposed legislation for decarbonization initiatives across EU and U.K .markets.
These associations are regularly consulted by national governments during the development of such legislation, as they seek the views of key manufacturers regarding the practicality of their proposed regulations. As you can see from the slide, both EU and U.K. governments are using a combination of incentivization and legislation to drive the decarbonization of heating systems. I would now like to outline how Stelrad is well positioned to capitalize on this transition. Regardless of heat source, steel panel radiators will remain the leading emitter technology in the coming years. In the context of low-temperature systems, you can see from this slide how four key heat emitter technologies compare: steel panel radiators, hydronic on the floor, and electrical elements, and fully electric radiators.
With a presence in hybrid and electric segments, Stelrad is well positioned to capitalize on the future growth of low and zero carbon systems using these heat emitter types. However, steel panel radiators will remain the leading emitter technology. They have the highest level of adoption across Europe, with a significant install base, as we have previously highlighted. As a major and proven technology, steel panel radiators are easy to install, have a long lifespan, and are fully recyclable, while offering the lowest installation and running costs. To ensure profitable growth for the future, Stelrad continues to innovate. We have a clear three-point product strategy to maximize Stelrad's revenue and profitability, regardless of how the market develops over the long term. Steel panel radiators remain by far the best solution, particularly for the RMI market.
We are promoting higher value, high-output conventional radiators suitable for lower system temperatures by extending our steel panel offer in terms of vertical and multi-panel multi-convector types, such as the K3. For heat pump systems operating at very low system temperatures, primarily in the new build market, we are developing hybrid radiators which combine a traditional hydronic heat emitter with forced electric convection to increase heat output. With the acquisition of Radiators S.p.A., Stelrad gained access to electric radiator technology. We are introducing these electric ranges into our core markets, leveraging Radiators S.p.A.'s range and know-how, alongside Stelrad's strong brands and access to specifiers and routes to market. Looking firstly at our progress in promoting high-output conventional steel panel radiators, you can see from this chart the clear growth trend over the past three years.
As a trusted advisor, Stelrad has always worked closely with new build, social housing, and commercial specifiers to find cost-effective, high-performance solutions. This partnership approach is all the more important with the introduction of low-temperature, low and zero-carbon heating systems. Driven by the changes in U.K. building regulations and by the introduction of an extended portfolio of triple panel, triple convector K3, 900 mm high, and vertical steel panel radiators, we have seen a 7% increase in the average heat output of radiators sold by Stelrad U.K. in the first half of this year. Between the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, the volume of these high-output, higher value products increased by 75%. Although we have mainly talked about residential market applications today, commercial specifiers are often at the forefront of the drive for decarbonization. This case study highlights an ambitious recent project at Barnsley Hospital.
In combination with air source heat pumps, over 300 of Stelrad's triple panel, triple convector K3 radiators were specified as part of this multi-million-pound project funded through the U.K. government's Public Sector Decarbonization Fund. The second pillar of our product development strategy is to develop hybrid products for low-temperature systems. Stelrad has been proactive in developing products suitable for very low system temperature, heat pump-compatible products, working with specifiers and key distribution partners to offer a growing range of electrically fan-assisted hybrid radiators. As you can see from this slide, we have recently launched a new range of hybrid heat emitters targeting the German RMI market. This range was developed in cooperation with a leading heat source and system provider, a long-established customer of Radiators S.p.A. Although just launched, initial market feedback for this exciting new range has been extremely positive.
Introducing electric radiators into core markets is the third element of our strategy. In many markets, electricity costs are higher than gas, making electric heating systems relatively costly to run. However, as electricity generation shifts to more renewable sources, governments are considering rebalancing the relationship between electricity and fossil fuel prices. For example, the EU will introduce a new emissions trading system called ETS2. This seeks to address relative CO2 emissions and will result, over time, in a shift in taxation from electricity to fossil fuels. Coupled with other benefits of direct electric heat emitters, such as ease and flexibility of installation, this product category has growth potential over the long- term. Through the acquisition of Radiators S.p.A., Stelrad gained access to a comprehensive portfolio of electric radiators, which had not been commercialized outside Italy, France, and Germany.
We are now able to leverage our leading market position, trusted brands, long-standing and influential specifier and customer relationships, and access to market channel to introduce a focused electrical offer into other core markets. In the U.K., Stelrad launched the Electric Series in the second half of 2023, targeting the small but growing market for electrical heat emitters. This introduction has been well received by our customers in both new builds and RMI segments. Our three-point product development strategy positions Stelrad effectively to meet growing demand for higher value radiators in the low-temperature, low and zero-carbon systems of the future. As a result, the outlook for us is extremely positive.
Although forecasting the impact of legislation on heat sources and the uptake of different heat emitter technologies is difficult at this early stage in the decarbonization journey, we are confident that Stelrad is well positioned to play a significant role and to grow profitably as markets evolve. Our brands, specifier influence, access to distribution channels, industry credibility, and reputation for market-leading product availability provide Stelrad with significant competitive advantages, regardless of the pace of change and the type of heat emitter specified. Stelrad's product development strategy positions the group effectively for profitable growth as the market develops. Higher value, high heat output conventional radiators will remain the most appropriate solution for the vast majority of hydronic heating systems, but we are also complementing our product range expansion in this category with the development of higher added value hybrid and electric heat emitters.
In summary, we are excited for Stelrad's prospects in a decarbonized market.
Good afternoon again, everyone, and welcome back. Before the break, Chris, Mike, and Koen talked to you about the structural growth drivers that will drive our future above-market growth, namely premiumization and decarbonization. From my perspective, there is no point in having attractive market opportunities if you are not positioned well to capture them and capture them in a way that is better than your competitors, which is what the rest of this afternoon will focus on. David Taylor, our Operations Director, will now talk you through our manufacturing processes and distribution network, two things that go hand in hand. Following this, Chris will make a return to explain to you how our position of scale in this market will all ow us to take part in and benefit from future consolidation.
And then Lee will explain to you how these factors will contribute to our future growth and the framework for this. With that, I'd like to hand you over to David.
Thanks, Trevor. Good afternoon, everybody. In this section, I'm going to run you through our manufacturing base and processes and explain why these provide a competitive advantage to maximize on steel panel volume recovery, alongside the category opportunities in premiumization and decarbonization that Chris and Koen outlined earlier. Before I come on to talk about the group, I wanted to give you an insight into Çorlu, which is our largest manufacturing facility based in Turkey, and we've got a great video for you here to get an insight.
[Foreign language]
I've worked in several positions in the company over the last 35 years and now lead the operations team. The Termo Teknik facility in Çorlu is around 100 km west of Istanbul and is a very significant site for the Stelrad Group. I have a highly experienced team around me, and together we manage 700 people across an 83,000 sq m site. We've been manufacturing steel panel radiators here since 1991. Following significant investment in recent years, we're now the group's largest manufacturing facility, producing around 70% of Stelrad's total annual volume. We have eight radiator manufacturing lines, three paint lines, and two packaging lines, all fully synchronized and operating automatically and at low cost. We operate 24 hours a day with the flexibility to produce a wide range of standard and design radiators in accordance with international standards.
The Çorlu site primarily manufactures radiators for export to the U.K., European, and other international markets. We actually only supply around 10% of what we make to the domestic Turkish market. We supply significant intercompany volumes to the U.K. and Europe to supplement local manufacturing from the group's other facilities. The team here at Çorlu works continuously to improve the business. With the advantage of producing similarly designed products, our aim is to make our factory as efficient as possible, using process KPIs and the latest technology, alongside best practice gained from and shared with other Stelrad sites. A single heat emitter design allows high levels of operational flexibility across the group. As well as industry-leading production performance, we continue to invest significantly to ensure health and safety standards are always at the top of the agenda.
An important example is the extensive use of robots to eliminate manual handling risks, ensuring these heavy products flow safely through our process. At the end of the manufacturing process, we transfer radiators to our on-site finished goods warehouse, which has the capacity to hold over 250,000 radiators. Product is sent either by truck to local customers or by container to other markets and to Stelrad Group locations in the U.K., the Netherlands, Poland, and Denmark. We have strong long-term partnerships in place with our logistics providers, with backup solutions in place to address any unexpected supply chain issues. The delivery process is synchronized to ensure all our customers receive industry-leading levels of on-time, in-full order fulfillment. Over the years, we've built up high levels of expertise in every area of radiator manufacturing, with state-of-the-art, high-speed lines that use some of the most technologically advanced machinery in the sector.
The investment we've made in recent years means that this is not only the largest steel panel radiator manufacturing facility in the world. In my opinion, it's also the most technologically advanced. We're proud to welcome customers to Çorlu to show off our operational capabilities and our diverse, high-quality product portfolio. It's a great site with some great people, and I'm very excited about our future plans as we strive to exceed customer expectations through a process of continuous operational improvement.
Levent, with over 35 years' experience, is an outstanding operations direc tor. He manages the largest, most advanced radiator facility in the sector, and by the way, he does speak very g ood English, just in case you're wondering. Our manufacturing facilities are strategically located across Europe. Their proximity to the largest markets is underpinned with low-cost supply from our Turkish facility and our small head office in Newcastle. In total, we have 1,400 colleagues working across four production sites and 18 production lines, with 50% of these based in Turkey. The group has a total manufacturing capacity of 8.3 million radiators per year. In the south of the Netherlands at Nuth, we maximize our exposure to Belgium, Germany, as well as the Netherlands, three of our core markets. Our Turkish factory is located on the European side of Istanbul, near one of the largest ports serviced in mainland Europe.
Our standardized heat emitter design, we have a significant benefit versus our competitors in having a standardized core heat emitter design across all plants. This allows us to adopt a pan-European manufacturing approach. At its heart is what we refer to as a 3 mm pitch radiator. This is the size of the water channels on every radiator, and those who've had a close look at the radiators in the room next door will see that. The process is similar to the automotive approach, whereby several different models are based on a standardized production platform. Pan-European procurement gives us significant benefits through economies of scale. For example, with steel alone, we spend approaching GBP 80 million per year sourcing on a pan-European basis, giving us significant purchasing power. The cost benefits then flow through to the factories with increased standardization throughout the process.
Due to our high production capacity, we can optimize and flex manufacturing between sites to suit changing business needs and market movements. This standardized approach and flexibility has been proven and tested multiple times over recent years, allowing us to maintain our leading levels of customer service and availability through many global events, which have impacted supply chains in general. I will talk in more detail about this in the next section. Technical skills are key within our manufacturing operations, and the single platform concept allows us to share and develop specialist knowledge across the group. For instance, we can transfer technicians between sites when new machinery is being installed, with the standardization providing a platform for sharing best practice and developing skill sets. Our asset base is the most up-to-date and technically advanced within the industry.
In recent years, we have invested more than GBP 40 million incremental CapEx in creating this industry-leading asset base. This investment underpins our flexibility and allows us to achieve the lowest-cost manufacturing within our industry. Our four plants, although standardized in many ways, have benefited from a range of investments. Some examples of each are shown here. Turkey has eight fully invested production lines with the highest density of robots in any radiator plant, and the unique hybrid line, which can produce both horizontal and vertical radiators, again, examples which are out on the wall. In the Netherlands, a leading-edge vertical line to satisfy a strong local market, combined with two other fully invested lines. A dedicated column facility, all supported with specialist packaging robots.
In Italy, we have the newest investment, and this is the newest investment in the whole of the radiator industry, which is a state-of-the-art panel production line. The plant in Italy also has diverse technology to produce column and electrical radiators. In the U.K., recent investments underpin incredibly high levels of productivity across all of our sites, but for example, in Mexborough, we have increased productivity by 30% in the past five years. This is very significant in a plant which was already performing at a high level for many years. We have made significant strides through our investment program, consistently not only growing our market overall capacity, but targeting this investment to focus on our lowest-cost facilities. Capacity doesn't tell the whole story. We've also enhanced the capabilities within our sites.
Building knowledge and skills, particularly in Turkey, has allowed us to produce higher specification and a wider product range. Previously, most of our high-specification product was manufactured in higher-cost environments. As a group, we have the largest capacity in the industry, and with this increased flexibility in our cost base, we are incredibly well-positioned to respond to market growth in steel panel radiators. We operate with high levels of finished goods stock, with additional backup within the supply chain at any given time. Underpinning this capacity is an incredibly secure supply chain, with some relationships of over 60 years and a minimum of two suppliers for all raw materials used. Steel, for example, we maintain two months' demand on-site. In off-site, we have another one or two months' supply, providing a buffer against unexpected events.
This also provides visibility over the future pricing of steel, ensuring we can respond in advance to any price volatility. Our pan-European procurement scale ensures priority from suppliers during periods of global tight supply. A high percentage of materials are European-sourced, but any sourced outside of Europe are always backed up with European-based supply. In 2020, as we know, it was hugely disruptive for our industry. Demand fell significantly, and we had to adjust our supply chains accordingly. This was then followed by a significant demand spike in 2021, with sites having to run near capacity for the best part of the year. By maintaining our long-term supplier relationships throughout 2020, we were the best-positioned player in the industry to both preserve and grow our market share during the volume recovery in 2021.
In summary, our flexible, state-of-the-art, low-cost manufacturing footprint is a key source of competitive advantage for the group and is the product of strategic decisions taken by this management team over the past two decades. The second source of sustainable competitive advantage for the group is Stelrad's market-leading customer service and product availability, which I'm going to come on to talk about next. Each of our manufacturing sites I talked about earlier is attached to a distribution center with two additional independent sites. Rather than talk you through each of the sites and their capabilities, we have another video to show you, which can demonstrate it better than I can. So I'll jump into the video as that is, right? Okay, I hope you enjoyed the video. In summary, no other radiator manufacturer has the scale of distribution which Stelrad has across Europe.
As per our manufacturing investments, equally important is the investment we've made in our distribution centers. The real differentiator is the warehousing capability we've developed, which allows us to comprehensively stock in locations strategically located in our key markets. It is very rare for us to have a customer who is not able to purchase from us because the product isn't in stock. But due to our single platform concept, we can access stock across the group or reconfigure existing warehouse products to the customer's specification. Our color range is extensive. We stock a small range of color for the popular sizes, but to ensure customers have maximum choice, each site is linked with a local coloring facility to convert standard product, standard weight product, that is, to any customer specification on short lead times. This minimizes obsolete stock risk.
For us, our distribution capability gives us real confidence that we can not only grow market share and absorb increased volumes, but can do so while maintaining on-time and full delivery performance. We'll come on to talk about that. This slide demonstrates everything you need to know about our manufacturing and supply chain capability. With a product range of over 50,000 SKUs, we achieve exceptional industry-leading customer performance. The resilience of our supply chain ensures we don't let customers down. Product availability is vital in our sector, and we have by far the best. Five years ago, the industry norm, OTIF, was 90%, meaning that almost one in 10 orders wouldn't be available. Ours now sits just below 100% and is by far the best in the industry, thanks to a conscious effort to improve our planning and supplier management.
The primary driver behind this has been getting our sites to operate as a network. Through improved cross-group planning capability, we have been able to focus on ensuring our sites provide the right product at the right time with the right priorities, always focusing on the end customer. In conjunction with rigorous supply chain management and supplier KPI-based audits focused on OTIF, we ensure production units are fully focused on the end customers. This approach has normalized our finished goods stock levels and eliminated historic supply and stock volatility. Product availability and shipping product on time drives our best-in-class customer service. These are the real things that impact customers. While pricing is always an important factor, availability sells radiators far more effectively than price alone.
This slide is the result of everything I've talked about over the last two sections: satisfied, repeat customers who use Stelrad as a supplier of choice. It's also reflected in a broader way by our Trustpilot score of 4.6, which is industry-leading for radiator manufacturers. We are very well-positioned to capitalize on structural opportunities. Our low-cost manufacturing provides leading customer service and product availability. Our best-in-class position is underpinned by five key points: one, our pan-European manufacturing capacity. Two, standardized core product design and manufacturing processes. Three, our investment, which drives low-cost capacity and flexibility. Four, secure, robust supply chain and reliable support partners. And fifth, our pan-European distribution and extensive routes to market. These factors combined ensure we are ideally placed to maximize opportunities for market share growth in steel panel radiators, combined with category growth opportunities in premiumization and decarbonization with out compromising availability and customer service.
Thank you very much. I'll hand you back to Chris.
Thank you, David. Sorry. Thank you, David. Our flexible, low-cost manufacturing coupled with market-leading customer service and product availability are two key competitive advantages, enabling Stelrad to develop its leading position in the radiator market. Growing market share is one of Stelrad's four key strategic objectives, and I'd now like to give you an overview of the progress we've made in recent years before looking at the potential for further market consolidation. Now, having moved into the number one position for the first time in 2022, Stelrad significantly extended its steel panel radiator market leadership in 2023. Our market share increased to 20.2%, a 1.4% p oints increase relative to 2022.
Although, as the clear U.K. market leader, the group benefited from the relative strength of this market compared to mainland Europe in 2023, Stelrad has a strong track record of share growth over the longer- term, while traditional Western European compe titors, Purmo and Arbonia, have experienced consistent year-over-year share decline, as you can see from the chart. By continuing to leverage our market leadership, strong brands, long-established customer relationships, and flexible low-cost operations, we'll build on this position in future years and remain well-positioned for growth as markets recover. Delivering Stelrad's long-term share growth is our clear focus on 10 core markets, which in 2023 represented 68% of the total European market and over 80% if we exclude Russia.
Since 2019, this approach has driven share growth in nine out of our 10 core markets, with double-digit gains in Denmark, Netherlands, France, Sweden, and Germany, with the number one player in six of these markets having overtaken two long-established players to gain leadership in France. Much of this growth has been achieved organically, but the acquisition of Radiators S.p.A. was instrumental in growing share in Germany by 11.4% and moving Stelrad into the number three position in this important European market. We've made considerable progress over the last five years, leveraging our position of scale and our strong internationally recognized brands to gain share and increase our influence in the steel panel radiator market. Since 2019, we've gained 2.3 percentage points share and have increased the number of top three positions we hold from 13 to 18. In total, we are the number one player in seven markets overall.
Over the same period, Purmo, our main competitor, has lost 4.2 percentage points share and won top three position. As you can see from the chart, no other players are able to challenge Stelrad or Purmo in terms of volume of radiators sold or number of top three positions held. This means that the steel panel radiator market still offers significant potential for future consolidation. As you can see from this chart, in 2023, 11 players had sales volume in excess of 500,000 units, with just five selling over 1 million. They held 77% share and in total sold a combined 17.8 million units. The market, though, is highly fragmented beyond these operators of scale, with over 60 national or regional players representing the remaining 23% market share, and that's a combined volume of 5.3 million radiators.
They're all operating at suboptimal levels and represent opportunities for consolidation as they struggle to adapt to evolving competitive pressures. With a pan-European presence and strong globally recognized brand, Stelrad's well-positioned to benefit as smaller competitors exit the market. In fact, we've been disproportionately successful in gaining market share from exiting competitors as our market-leading levels of product availability and customer service enable us to provide immediate support to potential customers who find themselves suddenly without supply. As a result, Stelrad was the main beneficiary when QRL Radiators exited the market in 2018-2019, and we gained around 50% of that available volume. Our leadership position also provides acquisition opportunities, providing there's clear alignment with our key strategic objectives. This was certainly the case with our acquisition of Radiators S.p.A. in 2022, as you can see from the following video.
Ciao, sono Stefano Valente e sono il CEO di Radiators S.p.A.
I've been with the business since 2004 and was part of the team involved in the Stelrad Group acquisition in 2022. I started my career as an export sales manager at Ferroli, an Italian radiator manufacturer, before joining what was then known as DL Radiators back in 2004, initially doing a similar job to what I did at Ferroli before moving into marketing and sales management and eventually becoming CEO in 2019. We have a fantastic business here in Italy, so it was no surprise to me when Stelrad decided to acquire us. I've been familiar with Stelrad for many years, given their leading position in the market, so when I learned that our parent company, De'Longhi Industrial, had reached an agreement for us to become part of the Stelrad Group, I was very excited at the opportunity.
I'm standing here at our main manufacturing site in Moimacco near Udine in Italy, where we employ approximately 250 people. It's a big site with 16 lines operating over 65,000 sq m. Our wide and varied product range includes steel panel, multi-column steel, aluminum, and towel warmer radiators, alongside electrical and hybrid ranges suitable for low and zero-carbon heating systems. In 2023, we sold 700,000 radiators. Around 60% of our sales are in higher added value design ranges, including premium steel panel radiators. The trend towards higher value design products has been developing for many years now, as customers realized long ago that a radiator is more than just a heat emitter. It's an opportunity to hang something stylish on your wall that improves the look and feel of your room.
Our customers are prepared to spend more on our products because what we provide not only heats their rooms effectively and efficiently, but it also looks good as well. Around 90% of our sales are into France, Germany, and Italy, and our German and French customers are just as motivated by these trends as our customers here in Italy. Similarly, it's also important to note that 52% of our sales are through the DIY channel, so by combining our business with Stelrad's, we are better able to access the significant private residential RMI segment. The last two years have clearly been a challenging time for the global economy, and that has fed through to the RMI market, where we are still seeing depressed volumes versus what we saw in 2021. However, we've been busy during this period.
The integration back in 2022 certainly feels like a long time ago now, and we are very much part of the Stelrad family. Stelrad's acquisition of Radiators S.p.A. was very strongly aligned with all four of the group's key strategic objectives: growing market share, improving product mix, optimizing routes to market, and positioning effectively for decarbonization. In terms of share growth, Radiators S.p.A. has brought important gains in steel panel share in core markets, notably in Germany, where the group now has the number three position. We've also delivered share gains in other product categories, particularly steel multi-column types. In 2023, Radiators' diverse product range helped to drive a 2.5 percentage point increase in Stelrad Group's design radiator mix. We've also provided increased market access by both geography and by route to market.
At the same time, we've helped position Stelrad more effectively for heating system decarbonization with a broad range of hybrid and dual-fuel products, which gives the group a credible electric heat emitter portfolio for the first time. Joining the group gave us access to new territories and new routes to market, bringing scale along with a deep understanding of and focus on radiator manufacturing. We have progressively implemented best practices and learnings from across the group into our business, including Stelrad's relentless focus on health and safety and better ways of working. Stelrad also brought investment to our site, one key example being our new state-of-the-art steel panel radiator manufacturing line, undoubtedly the most modern in Europe. It was installed last year. I'm incredibly excited about what the future holds for our business. We have new products coming through and new customer relationships coming on board.
We're also building new opportunities with new business partners and are always implementing new, better ways of working, so we're all looking forward to the future with confidence.
So in summary, market leadership positions Stelrad well to capitalize from both future consolidation and from market recovery. With 11.8% share, we're the leading player in the hydronic heat emitter market, a position that's very much driven by being number one player in steel panel radiators, the largest single product category. In 2023, we held 20.2% share of that market, and our clear strategic focus on 10 core countries has enabled consistent share growth at the expense of our traditional competitors. As the largest of only five players with volume in excess of one million units per annum, Stelrad is well-positioned to capitalize as markets consolidate and volume recovers.
Our strong internationally recognized brands are coupled with a comprehensive product portfolio of standard, premium, and designer radiators, now complemented by hybrid and electric heat emitters and fit for the decarbonized future of home heating. With high levels of customer service driven by unrivaled product availability and the key competitive advantages of scale and a flexible low-cost manufacturing, Stelrad has clear potential for profitable future growth, both in terms of organic share gains and through complementary acquisitions. I'd now like to hand over to Leigh, who will outline what everything you've heard from us this afternoon about our strategy, structural growth drivers, and competitive advantages means in financial terms.
Thanks, Chris. Good afternoon, everyone. And we're now presenting the financial framework. This section firstly outlines the historical performance of the business, which shows the benefit to date that the group has received from its three sustainable competitive advantages.
Before outlining what additional benefit our structural growth drivers are expected to have on the group in the future, finally, I'll outline our capital allocation priorities. My first slide shows the group's financial performance for the past nine years. Revenue has grown by over 80%, with increases due to market share growth, favorable geographical mix, and higher penetration of premium panel products and price increases. While the group has benefited from the acquisition of Radiators S.p.A., challenging market conditions mean that post-acquisition sales volume in FY23 is still 14% below pre-acquisition sales volume in FY21, further emphasizing the importance of the growth initiatives highlighted earlier and the upside for the group from a market-led volume recovery.
Our adjusted operating profit performance highlights the strength of management actions, including the benefit of a focus on key geographical markets, improving product mix in terms of premium panel, increasing efficiency arising from our capital investment program, and leveraging our low-cost production facility in Çorlu. In challenging market conditions, our contribution per radiator measure is key to highlighting how the group, on a per-unit basis, has been able to compensate for underlying reduction in sales volume. The historical growth in this variable profit measure is underpinned by sustainable initiatives and clearly highlights the operating leverage that the group enjoys. Increased premium panel penetration and the sale of larger radiators in the future will further enhance this measure. Our historical operating cash conversion percentage has been suppressed by incremental capital investment program, as outlined by David earlier on, and also a strategic investment in working capital.
However, we expect this measure to improve in the future with lower required investment in capital employed. And our return of capital employed has improved in line with profits, which demonstrates a control over capital employed. With business capital employed expected to remain stable in the future, we can see further room for this measure to improve. The strength of the group's historical performance and its resilience through a very challenging period for the sector highlights a positive impact of management actions taken and the successful execution of strategy. This is further evidenced by the group trend update this morning, which reiterated that the group's outlook for the full year, despite a volume environment that remains subdued.
The group is positioned for profitable growth, and in particular, with high contribution to radiator providing operating leverage and a well-invested capital base that gives us the capacity to grow with limited additional fixed costs. Together, the group's strong track record and attractive positioning underpinned our confidence that the medium-term targets we set out today are achievable. Throughout the course of the presentation, we've outlined our key strategic objectives: a growing market share, optimizing routes to market, positioning effectively for decarbonization, and improving product mix. We believe that the continued successful delivery of these strategic objectives will lead to a significant enhancement of the group's financial performance and have set out our new key medium-term targets on this slide.
These are: market share improvement of 1%-2%, contribution per radiator growing to an excess of GBP 21, improving our operating profit margin to 13%, consistently achieving operating cash flow conversion of greater than 90%, and finally, return of capital employed exceeding 30%. Our targets are solely based on organic growth and do not include any benefit for market recovery, and we consider that the medium term to represent a three to five-year period. This next slide examines in greater detail the operating margin enhancement opportunity and the steps that we believe will allow us to achieve this medium-term target of 13%, noting that this target excludes the benefit of underlying market recovery. Based on the FY23 margin of 9.5%, this target represents a 3.5 percentage point improvement over the medium term, with this improvement underpinned by our strategic objectives.
Chris has already highlighted the significant size of the steel panel radiator market at 23 million units. Even this modest market share improvement, driven by our sustainable competitive advantages and the current contribution per radiator levels, would enhance variable profit margins with only minimal requirement to increase fixed costs. The incremental contribution for premium products that was outlined in the first half of the presentation is another key margin driver. An ongoing focus on driving premium panel volumes, in particular in our largest market, the U.K. and Ireland, where the penetration is lowest at less than 3%, represents a significant margin enhancement opportunity. Optimizing routes to market, in particular growing revenue in the direct to consumer channel, provides further growth opportunity with the benefits of higher channel margins and a more attractive underlying product mix.
By positioning effectively for decarbonization, we've introduced a naturally margin-enhancing set of products, whether they be larger, vertical, or electric, they all provide margin benefits. The margin enhancement opportunity may be less than for premium panel. We would expect decarbonization to impact a more significant proportion of our sales volumes. And finally, another critical lever is operational excellence. With further leverage of our Turkey facility, ongoing challenging of our fixed cost base, and the continued focus of performance of Radiators S.p.A. will provide a margin enhancement potential. As noted earlier, the enhancement of our operating margin in our medium-term targets is due to the impact of management actions and does not depend on market recovery. Since 2019, due to challenging macroeconomic conditions, steel panel radiator market volumes have fallen by over 25%.
Market recovery and enhanced contribution per radiator levels will provide additional profit upside beyond that given by our strategic drivers. The business is well set for market recovery, underpinned by our sustainable competitive advantages. Even a modest 10% recovery of the underlying volume reduction the group has experienced, which equates to around 200,000 units, will give a 4 million improvement in variable profits based on current contribution per radiator levels. We now move to our capital allocation priorities, and we recognize that the successful execution of our strategic objectives will give rise to a strong growth in free cash flow and a requirement to carefully determine how capital is allocated. We will allocate our capital in accordance with the following priorities: continued investment for organic growth through new product development, operational excellence, and best-in-class customer service, which have all served the group well to date.
At this point, it's worth noting, as highlighted earlier, the group is already benefiting from a significant program of capital investment in recent years and has ample manufacturing capacity to support organic growth, shareholder returns via a progressive ordinary dividend policy, controlling leverage to reduce the group's cost of lending and provide financial flexibility, and finally, consideration of selective acquisition based on our consolidation criteria. Thank you very much for your time. I'll now hand you back over to Trevor for concluding remarks.
Thanks, Lee. Thanks, Lee. Firstly, can I thank everyone for coming this afternoon? This slide won't be a surprise to anyone who has been listening, but I think it's important to bring everything back together. We have an attractive market opportunity with positive underlying dynamics in the hydronic heat emitter market and a significant installed base, ready for a replacement cycle that we expect to come through in the medium term. We have two structural growth drivers that will drive our product mix and margin, enabling above-market growth, premiumization, and decarbonization, and we have three competitive advantages that put us in prime position to take advantage of these market opportunities: the flexibility of our manufacturing facilities and processes, our leading levels of product availability, and finally, our market positioning.
Taken together over the medium term, these will drive above-market growth, an increase in contribution per radiator, an operating margin of 13%, cash conversion of more than 90%, and a return on capital employed of over 30%. As Lee has outlined, these medium-term targets exclude the benefits of an underlying market recovery that the group is now very well positioned for. Before we turn to Q&A, I'd like to finish by summarizing our investment case, which I think today has served to evidence. We have a leading market position, a robust business model, an experienced management team with an effective and proven strategy, a strong financial position that will only strengthen as a result of that strategy, and a long-term structural tailwind from decarbonization legislation. We're now going to move to a Q&A session.
If you could please state your name and your institution before you ask your questions, it would be appreciated. Right, Leigh? Right, Chris? Well.
Thanks very much. Ainsley Lammin from Investec. I think I've got three questions, actually. First of all, just to clarify, the 13% margin target, is my understanding correct? That's all the kind of self-help, if you like to call it that, and then on top of that, with the market recovery and the drop-through, it would look more like 15% if you've got a fully recovered market and you've delivered on all those strategic objectives. Is that the right way of thinking about the margin? And secondly, linked to that, just in terms of the U.K. and Europe, is there kind of similar upside from here in both areas of the group? And on the U.K., obviously, big opportunity there to increase the premium share. Just a bit more understanding and color why the U.K. has lagged the group average, being 2.5% versus 7%.
What's kind of kept that down, if you like? And actually, just one more on M&A pipeline. Interested to hear your thoughts on kind of what that looks like and your appetite for M&A. Thanks.
There's several parts to that question, wasn't there? It's always good to start with an easy question. I think the 13%, Leigh, is the first part of the question.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the 13% is without market recovery, and that's really underpinned by the lever we outlined. Obviously, market recovery would enhance that further. We clearly state that our contribution per radiator level is around £20, and you can see from our new report, the average selling price around the group would be about GBP 60 a radiator. So the variable contribution on incremental volume would be around 33% compared to, obviously, a 13% operating margin target. Obviously, there'll always be investment in fixed costs to support the business, but we would hope for a very considerable drop-through from market recovery through to the bottom line and underlying earnings.
I think the second part of your question, Ainsley, was why is the U.K. underrepresented in premium products? And I think that goes back to the nature of distribution across mainland Europe and the differences between mainland Europe and the U.K. On mainland Europe, where typical design or premium panel rate of penetrations are double-digit or more, we see distribution being dominated by regional independents who tend to be more focused on the upsell. That compares to the U.K., where distribution tends to be very trade-oriented, and they don't seem to be as focused or they're not alive to the opportunities of upselling. I think you might want to.
Yeah, I think just from the work that we've done with Eden McCallum this time around, I think the evolution from 2017- 2024 gives real cause for optimism there, Ainsley, because I think we're seeing more installers recommending higher added value products now, and I think we're also seeing consumers making the decisions and purchasing the products themselves, so, I mean, the important thing is to get in front of consumers and to be influencing that decision, which we're increasingly convinced the market is moving towards.
Hi, Michael Brown, Lombard Odier. Two questions, firstly. Could you just give us some insight into what the competition are doing and, on that basis, reflect whether there's actually more market share opportunity because they're pulling away or moving into other areas? And then the second question would be on the leverage, one to one and a half times. Obviously, I don't want to force you into M&A, but if this business throws off the cash that you're suggesting, then how would you envisage that cash coming back to shareholders beyond, obviously, just a progressive dividend?
Okay. I think the first question you raise is a very important one in terms of what differentiates Stelrad from its main pan-European competitors. And I think what differentiates us is that we are very clearly focused on the heat emitter market. I have seen both of my major pan-European competitors, Purmo and Arbonia, diversify their thinking into broader product categories and move into what they believe are more powerful system selling activity, trying to sell a portfolio of products, not just steel panel radiators, but air source heat pumps and associated controls. And that has resulted in a significant reduction in their focus on steel panel radiators. We haven't been shy to take advantage of that reduced focus, and that has allowed us to develop our market share position. I think Chris outlined quite clearly the 10-market strategy that we have.
That represents 80% of European steel panel radiators if you exclude Russia. So, I mean, the difference between ourselves and our main competitors is our dedication and focus to what we do. We excel at what we do, which is primarily heat emitters in the broader radiator family. The second question was.
Capital allocation.
Capital allocation.
I mean, we've set our capital allocation priorities. Obviously, we'll continue to invest in the business, although we would argue that through the capital program we've done recently and through kind of the sensible commercial strategies we've deployed, we were very well set. But that continues, we will continue to invest in that. Obviously, we'll look to kind of deleverage and save interest costs in that regard. But I think we've demonstrated over the last kind of few years a more progressive dividend policy. We've increased our policy in recent years in advance of our underlying kind of 40%, which we set out, which is very much looking forward to the future and supporting kind of investors through the cycle. And that's probably something we'll look to as well, along with other M&A opportunities.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for the presentation. So, it's Andrea Collins from Davy here. So, I have three questions, if that's okay. I'll go through them one by one. So, the first one, I guess, is kind of following on from Michael's question about capital allocation. I guess relating to that over 90% cash conversion target, how does that link to any planned investment, any kind of return of fixed costs as the market recovers, and also kind of any planned or incremental spend?
Yeah, so I mean, in terms of cash conversion percentage, the recent period has kind of been suppressed by the incremental capital investment program that David outlined earlier. So, we expect in the future there'll be a natural recovery on that as capital spend dropped to a more normal level. Obviously, when you look at capital requirements to unlock the growth drivers, now we consider that we're very well set. In terms of the existing business, pre-Radiators S.p.A., we have significant capacity, well invested, very low cost. It supports the production of premium panel radiators, as you can see outside today. And in terms of the decarbonization, the natural enhancement of our products to be bigger, taller, deeper, it's just part of that radiator production. And all we need to do is just tweak what we make.
Now, what we were possibly lacking is covered up by the acquisition of Radiators S.p.A., which we bought two years ago. They brought ability to play in those kind of premiumization and decarbonization in different manners. In premiumization, they brought the steel column products, which you see outside, and decorative steel tubular, which are a really good enhancement to our portfolio. And for decarbonization, they brought hybrid and electric radiators. So, I think we expect that we've done the hard work and expect to get the rewards in the future for that hard work with those market drivers with limited additional capital.
Okay, great. And then my second question, I think it's similar to Ainsley's question about, sorry, M&A over the next few years. I guess you mentioned adjacencies in the past. You've also, I guess, alluded to that kind of highly fragmented radiator market. So, I guess looking forward, where do you see any opportunities in M&A? Where's the pipeline? And I guess what sort of timeline would you look at?
I think I've mentioned in the past that we maintain a continuous watch and brief on all of our competitors. We are fortunate that we are positioned in a market-leading position, a position of scale, which makes us the logical consolidator. I think the market conditions currently are quite subdued, quite depressed, and I can see quite a few of my competitors in a somewhat distressed stage. We will watch this marketplace continuously, and if when the right opportunity comes around, we will not be slow to respond.
Okay, great. And the last one then is just on market share. I guess looking forward, is there any kind of main countries or geographies you're particularly targeting? And then also, I guess that direct-to-consumer, the Stelrad.com website, where do you see that going over the next few years?
Well, do you want to answer that? Have you answered that?
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I think the first one, I think we've got a very wide, in addition to our 10 core countries, we have a wide exposure across 40 countries. But I think to come back to Trevor's point earlier, what has driven our growth is focus, whether that's on heat emitters or markets, that's what we've done. So, I think there'll be perhaps some shifts in mix country to country over the following years. But the biggest opportunity in terms of profitable growth is around improving product mix, as we talked about premiumization, and positioning ourselves effectively for decarbonization, which fortunately we're now in a good position, having covered three out of the four key technologies for the future in steel panel radiators, hybrid, and electric products.
Stelrad.com was the other topic. I think it's really exciting for us to have seen the evolution of the market since 2017 and the rise of that direct-to-consumer channel, and I think for us, really, it's a rebalancing, if you like, of our existing strategy for developing sales, particularly of designer products, so it's really about reallocating our marketing resources appropriately to make sure we can continue to accelerate the growth in the B2C channel with Stelrad.com.
Toby. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Two and a half questions, I think. So, first of all, obviously, capacity isn't an issue around the group at the moment.
Sorry?
Capacity around the group isn't an issue at the moment. But I noticed from the Italy video, obviously one new line put in last year, 16 lines in total, I think, there seemed to be less automation there than there is in the U.K. and in Turkey. Is there an opportunity to automate that and make it more efficient, or does the range not lend itself to that?
I think the first thing is that in Italy, we have the most advanced radiator production line in our sector. It was only installed in January, quarter one last year, quarter one 2023. It is very state-of-the-art, and it has a whole range of automated handling systems in there. When we talk about Turkey, Turkey is the most robot-intensive radiator facility in our sector. But I mean, the layout of Turkey is not as optimal as it is in Italy. And we use those robots to mitigate manual handling risks associated with the layout of the plant. If you went to the plant, you'd be able to see it. I think we'll have a colleague in the audience who has recently been to Turkey and saw that, haven't they? I can't see him. Oh, I can. He's hiding at the back.
Thanks. Wonderful. Just in the CapEx context, what's the sort of maintenance CapEx in the group on a continuing basis?
We've got to say GBP 6-6.5 million per annum, just in terms of excluding, obviously, the finance element. But yeah, that would be the unless there's some specifics that are required, but GBP 6-6.5 million is what we look at in terms of bottom line.
Okay, that was the half. The final question is on premium panels. Just wondering, either in your medium-term view or your fve-year vie w to 2028, where you think the percentage of sales will go on premium rads?
Are we going to name a number?
Would you say not to name a number, Toby, but we do have a number, and clearly, the work that Mike and his colleagues and Eden McCallum clearly outlined the size of the prize, which we showed you in graphical form, but we'd prefer not to quote a number at this stage.
Unders tood. Thank you.
Now, Purmo's gone into Apollo, who are now shrinking violets. Do you expect a fight back there, or you still got a free run because their strategy has changed?
I think their strategy is more of the same. I understand that Apollo were attracted to Purmo because of their development position in system solutions. They made a relatively small Italian acquisition several years ago. They've had some success locally in the Italian market in terms of selling a broad range of products outside of heat emitters. And I understand that that's Apollo's main focus at this moment in time. But I agree with them, they're not a shrinking violet.
Tom Frame from Shore Capital. Just conscious that Trustpilot, customers of Trustpilot, as in the companies that are on the platform, can actually pay to effectively get reviews removed or at least get them verified. Obviously, it makes sense for companies to do this, particularly if they're worried about fake reviews, for example. But it sometimes leads people to be a bit skeptical about Trustpilot as a platform. So, my question is, how well reviewed are you on other platforms and have you?
Have you looked at our Trustpilot ratings?
It's a 4.6.
Have you looked at them?
No, no.
You haven't looked at them? Okay. I mean, I encourage you to look at them. I mean, we engage with Trustpilot quite enthusiastically. We have people in the customer service department who review them on a daily basis and respond to customers and resolve problems. And no, we don't pay to have our Trustpilot rating enhanced. But now you've mentioned that, I'll add it to the list, Chris.
Thanks for that. And just another point on the competitive dynamics. So, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this correctly, but Elginkan looks to have been gaining share quite effectively over recent years like yourselves. Are they in similar areas, or do they have some competitive advantages that you may see as threatening, or is it completely different niches?
Elginkan is a Turkish producer, a competitor of our Termo Teknik business, and is well known to us. They've been around for a long, long time. It's a very long-established business. They don't have any main brands in Europe. They don't have any main logistics or distribution capability, but what they do is they ship containers. And several years ago, they were very successful in securing the Kingfisher contract, so the vast majority of the growth that Elginkan have secured is growth on the back of securing one contract, that of Kingfisher. It's the Screwfix contract. The product is now known as Flomasta, I think, Ali?
Yeah, yeah.
Flomasta. But I mean, it's a business that we are well aware of, not complacent of, don't take lightly. But the lack of distribution capability, the lack of a brand, the lack of a commercial presence in Europe outside of Kingfisher is very limiting.
Thank you.
Sorry, it's Dan Thornton from Davy. Two questions, if I may. The first one is that Sanderson Design Group, which does sort of posh wallpaper and posh fabrics, so sort of design-led sort of stuff, they were very focused on trying to get their brands, which is like Sanderson, which is like William Morris & Co., into sort of magazines like Homes and Gardens and other sort of premium design-led magazines just to raise consumer awareness of what you could get. What are you doing in that regard to try and go direct to the consumer, the consumer that wants to buy expensive premium sexy radiators? And then the other question is, on my numbers, you've got about 18-19% free cash flow yield and earnings yield if you hit your targets. Roughly, roughly, would you buy back stock if the balance sheet gets inefficient?
Do I answer the second question first?
Say that again, Dan.
Can you repeat?
Sorry, I think you've got a high.
Sorry, I think you've got a high teens earnings yield if you hit your targets and their medium-term targets. At that stage, you might have no debt. So, would you do a share buyback?
Yeah, I mean, we'd probably consider that problem at the time. But I agree that with the earnings projection and a fair win, that would be an issue we'd have to look at and just because of the time, looking at probably what the liquidity in the stock is at the time and what the kind of underlying kind of third-party investment is. That's one thing we're very conscious of. But it's something that would be very nice to consider in the future.
I think the first part of your question was getting access to consumers. It was a key finding from the Eden McCallum work that consumers were becoming more and more important. I mean, Stelrad.com to date has grown by 38% per annum. We have plans to refresh and renew our online proposition early next year. I think you'll find some significant changes purely intended to increase its consumer awareness.
Thanks. Hi, thanks for the presentation. Rob Chantry from Berenberg. Just a couple of questions. So, firstly, on the kind of market structure, M&A side. So, you've flagged 11 businesses are 77% of the market and 60 regional ones at 23% of the market. Just give more color around the structure within there. I mean, do they typically distress? Are they typically kind of low margin? Are there any businesses that are viable, or is it more a case of taking shares they exit? Just to kind of give some more color around the actual role they play in the broader market. And then secondly, obviously, lots of questions have been asked so far. But in terms of positioning for decarbonization, there's a couple of slides in the deck around Barnsley Hospital.
Is there a larger opportunity for the kind of decarbonization of public health buildings, schools, etc., where there's certain frameworks or monies available that could become a more relevant part of the Stelrad story going forward with the current product range, or is that kind of not really a topic of discussion? Thank you.
Finally, a second question first. I mean, the Barnsley Hospital story is an excellent example of decarbonization in action. These initiatives tend to be funded by specific grants from government. And as you're aware, these grants, I think Koen highlighted in his presentation on decarbonization, while we're all heading to the same end point in 2050, the ability to fund that in recent years has been severely restricted. So, I mean, we're very lucky with Barnsley that we were able to secure the funding or the local authority was able to secure the funding, and we were able to work with that local authority to install, I think it was 300 K3 radiators on an air source heat pump installation. It's been a great success. The first point of your question was, sorry?
So, yeah, effectively structure of the 60 regional businesses that have a 23% market share. Are they actually buyable good businesses, or are they things that would, I mean, you've got nine, 10% margin as a scale player. Are these all low-margin businesses you wouldn't be interested in, or how to think about that?
I think it would be a fairly mixed bag would be the right answer. But I think we should say that any steel panel radiator manufacturer operating below 500,000 units per annum is really at a suboptimal level and will be feeling the pressure. And I think it's also, you know, I think what you see with a lot of those 60 players is that they are national players or sort of regional players, but they don't have pan-European brands. And I think what you're seeing on the distribution side is a need to consolidate. They can't handle numerous brands. And I think as those smaller players come under pressure, distributors then are seeking the comfort of reliable supply, a known brand. Because availability, you know, as David said, availability is really the thing that drives success in the radiator business.
Just a quick follow-up on that. In terms of obviously very high market shares per region, to what degree are these potential targets kind of actually, to what extent does their competition authority approval come into this? Because obviously, it's very high market shares. You can't go and buy if you're 40% market share. Does that mean you're basically limited to areas where you're sub 20%?
I think if you look at our acquisition criteria, we're looking for acquisitions that would increase our penetration of a market where we are underrepresented, and that was the case with the De'Longhi acquisition, so, I mean, I can clearly see there are competition authority considerations, but our focus would be on strengthening our position in those geographies where we were currently underrepresented. So, I wouldn't anticipate any competition authority issues.
Thanks, guys.
Michael, had a question behind you?
Yeah, just given that in the U.K., new builds are at the forefront of the decarbonization agenda, could you give us any insight into, should we call it contribution per new house? Is it going up as a result of the way they're laying their new houses out?
Don't talk about your sizes.
Yeah, I mean, I think.
Sorry, the question was, given that in the U.K., new houses are at the forefront of decarbonization, could you give us some insight into the contribution per house as opposed to number of radiators? Because I guess that obviously, if they're fitting bigger ones, then you might have less radiators. So, just some insight there would be helpful.
Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of what we've seen so far from the changes on Part L, we're seeing larger radiators fitted. I think we referred earlier, we've seen Stelrad U.K. in the first half of the year, a 7% increase overall. So, basically, when you're running on a heat pump system at those low system temperatures, you're virtually doubling the selling price of the radiator. So, and obviously, the higher value multi-panel products have higher margin than the smaller single-panel, single convector radiators. So, from that perspective, that's a positive dynamic.
Hi, Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt. I've got a couple. The first one is really kind of follow-ups on the premiumization point. I know you've talked about kind of the consumer driving it, but you've still got 30%-40% of it being led by the installer. What's your pitch to the installer to make their life a bit harder and pitch a more premium radiator? Is it just that you can charge GBP 200 for a radiator and put 15% on it or 20% on it rather than 60 or 70 quid for a standard panel? How do you get them on board? Because the merchants don't want to hold more stock.
Yeah, I think there's a couple of things here. Number one, it's availability. So, I absolutely agree. Installers do not want any hassle when it comes to fitting radiators. But what we're increasingly working towards is very fast delivery times, 48-hour horizon for premium and design products. So, that's the first thing. But I think from the installer point of view, really, I think it's that consumers want these products. It's not the installer making the selection. It's often the consumer. I think for the installer, what's reassuring for them is Stelrad's a brand they work with every day. The availability of the product is there. What we have to do, and I think we need to, this is a key finding and a key thing that we need to do, is now work with the installers.
There's an educational element here to say we've got a very large installed base of standard steel panel radiators. Installers don't like designer radiators because they think they're weird and different. But premium steel panel radiators are direct replacements for standard steel panel radiators. So, that's a very straightforward installation from a brand they can trust available on short notice. So, I think those are the areas that we're focusing on with the installers.
Similarly, I guess for the consumer, I think Trevor's kind of hinted at this a little bit with his answer around the website. But are there plans to make that DTC offer more aspirational than it currently is? Because at the moment, I'd say it's more of a catalog than a sort of aspirational website.
Absolutely. And I think what's made us strong over the years, we've had a multi-brand strategy. And I think what we have now with Stelrad.com is an opportunity to carry that multi-brand strategy into our online presence. So, we can work with the Stelrad brand that's absolutely the trade's favorite. But there's things as we'll see outside, like the Hudevad brand, which is very high-end and allows us to take an upsell journey, not just through price points or product designs, but through brand. We've got the Radiators S.p.A. stuff represents Italian design. We've got the Hudevad products representing Danish design. So, it's having leveraging those strong brand positions within Stelrad.com to give us a better upsell.
Sam, you're absolutely right. When we relaunch Stelrad.com next year and we upgrade it, it will be more inspirational. There'll be more room sets. There'll be things to entice consumers down a particular path.
Just the follow-up back to that is on your CapEx allocation slide. You've got something about acquiring routes to market. Would you acquire anything in the sort of digital space, or would that just be organic?
We haven't taken that too far. We're aware of the opportunities of pure play online operators, and that could form part of an M&A strategy.
Thanks. Hi, there. This is Charlie Campbell. It's Stifel. I've got three, but they're all quite quick. It'd be good to hear. Just on page 59, you showed us the market share progression. What does that look like just organically only? Is that about half of the difference, organic and half acquisition? Is that right?
To be honest, it's mainly organic. I mean, the Radiators S.p.A. acquisition is the only thing that's really added non-organic steel panel growth. And that added about 11% to our share in Germany and a little bit in France. But most of the rest of the growth has been organic.
Thank you very much. The second one, Leigh, in your presentation, you talked about some organic growth adding to the margin target. What's the right sort of number to be thinking about organic growth every year, I mean, outside of recovery?
I mean, the organic growth we talk about in terms of the margin targets is kind of growing market share. And we've said kind of 1%-2% over the medium term. And obviously, we expect the medium term to be kind of three- to five-year period. It depends on many factors, obviously, in terms of which markets grow, where, and what traction we can make. But I think obviously the market we call was GBP 23 million, and 1% of that would be GBP 230,000, which would be kind of a reasonable starting point in terms of that medium-term target.
Okay. Thank you very much. And last one for Trevor. You've seen a lot of new build, sort of a lot of cycles in new build house building in the U.K. Just based on your experience and maybe conversations with house builders, just wondering what you're starting to think about volume in new housing for next year?
I mean, I do talk to the principals of all the major new builders on a regular basis. There is a renewed confidence coming through with them. Whether or not the fallout from the budget dampens that somewhat. I mean, the people that I talk to are all reporting increased reservation rates, quite significant and quite noticeable, and it's continuing. As to what that might unfold in 2025, I wouldn't like to predict.
Thank you.