Design Group 2024 Half Year Results

Introduction from
Paul Bal

We are very pleased with what has been delivered in the period, testament to the hard work across the Group with colleagues increasingly working together to achieve our goals. Thanks to this, we are able to report a strong start to delivering continued margin and profit growth this year. Cash delivery during this period has also been beyond our original expectations. Alongside these significant achievements, we are making good progress in realising our stated aspiration to return the Group to pre-Covid-19 adjusted operating profit margins by 31 March 2025. Our achievement over this period is all the more commendable as it has been reached during a time when consumer demand is under pressure from a number of external forces, which is reflected in lower customer orders.

As reported in June, we have experienced lower order quantities since early 2023 in our Everyday categories and products. Since then, as announced in our trading update, we have seen lower quantities being ordered for the forthcoming seasons, especially Christmas. Further, we have experienced some reversal in the seasonality shifts seen last year when customers had accelerated their ordering following the supply chain disruption of mid-2021, meaning that some sales have returned to the second half of our financial year. The combination of these factors, along with tender gains and losses and favourable currency movements has resulted in an almost net 15% reduction in revenue during the period. The decline occurred primarily in the DG Americas division, while our businesses in continental Europe drove the DG International division to overall revenue growth.

Paul Bal
Chief Executive Officer