Building supplies company Ibstock has said that it has seen early indications of a positive trend in the UK’s housing market, but a full recovery in end markets won’t happen soon.
It said that it saw new-build residential activity improving, but that it “expect[s] this to take time to feed through into sustainably stronger demand for products”.
Ibstock offers building products, as well as technical and design services for the housing industry.
It has suffered with the fall in construction activity promoted by high interest rates, and its revenue dropped 20 per cent to £178m in the first six months of 2024, down from £223m last year.
However, it said its performance in the third quarter of the year was “solid” and broadly in line with expectations, with “sales volumes were similar to the comparative prior year period”.
Joe Hudson, CEO of Ibstock, said: “The Group delivered a solid performance in the third quarter, continuing to manage cost and capacity tightly, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the period broadly in line with our expectations and margins remaining resilient. Our expectations for full year performance are unchanged from the guidance provided at the half year.
“Our growth investment projects are now in production, adding lower cost and more sustainable capacity to our network. We have seen some initial signs of recovering activity levels in new build residential markets which should feed into sustainably stronger demand for our products in due course. Against this backdrop we have made some carefully targeted investments to restore capacity for product lines in some areas of our core markets.
“I believe the business has responded well to the challenges of the last few years, managing a significant downturn in its markets skilfully and responsibly, leaving Ibstock in a strong position to respond as our markets recover.”