World leading industrial thread company Coats (COA) highlighted challenging market conditions after reporting flat revenues for the four months ended 31 October, pushing the shares down 10% to 66.5p.
Coats struggled against the strong comparative growth in 2018 reflecting lower activity in both Apparel and Footwear (A&F), where the company is the market leader, and Performance Materials.
Within A&F (76% of revenues) the core thread business saw growth of 2% while Zips reported a single-digit decline due to the company cutting back on some parts of the business.
Performance Materials, which caters for a multitude of end-users sectors such as protective layers for fibre optics in the Telecoms industry and everyday applications such as bedding and tea bags, matched 2018 revenues which were up 10%.
Prior strong growth in Personal Protection (fire retardant and cur resistant yarns) and Telecoms moderated due to de-stocking while Transportation (high performance threads for the Auto industry) sales fell as it faced ‘challenging end-market conditions’.
The strategic priorities of the group are to deliver improved performance through efficiency improvements and the development of new products.
