- Slark to join ‘no later than’ 1 January
- New broom brings ‘unrivalled’ sector experience
- But trading remains challenging
Shares in Travis Perkins (TPK) perked up 7% to 623p after the hard-pressed builders’ merchant poached SIG’s (SHI) boss Gavin Slark as its new CEO.
The hire should bring much-needed stability to the FTSE 250 firm, which has been through a revolving door at the top in recent periods.
Travis Perkins’ long-suffering shareholders are counting on Slark to revive the fortunes of the building supplies firm, which operates in a construction sector struggling with higher interest rates and low consumer confidence.
Back in April, the stock hit a 15-year low after Travis Perkins lurched into loss for 2024 and warned profits for 2025 would miss forecasts amid ‘challenging’ trading conditions.
MOVER & SHAKER
Appointed following a ‘rigorous’ search process, building materials and merchanting industry mover and shaker Slark is to join Northampton-based Travis Perkins ‘no later than’ 1 January 2026.
Slark has been CEO of insulation and building products supplier SIG since 2023 and before that, was CEO of Dublin-based Grafton (GFTU) between 2011 and the end of 2022.
Between 2006 and 2011, he was CEO of The BSS Group before its acquisition by none other than Travis Perkins.
In March, Travis Perkins announced that Pete Redfern, who took over as CEO from Nick Roberts in September 2024, was leaving his post due to ill health after just a few months in the hot seat.
‘UNRIVALLED’ EXPERIENCE
‘The board and I are delighted that Gavin has agreed to join us,’ said the FTSE 250 firm’s chair Geoff Drabble.
‘Gavin brings with him unrivalled experience of the sector in addition to a long pedigree as a CEO of significant public companies. Gavin is well placed to continue the work we have started to refocus and change the way we operate in order to better serve our customers and work effectively with our suppliers, as well as engage and motivate our teams.’
Slark certainly has his work cut out to engineer a turnaround at Travis Perkins.
For the year to December 2024, the company swung to pre-tax losses of £38.4 million from profits of £121.4 million a year earlier on a 5% drop in revenue to £4.61 billion.
The group blamed price deflation, a ‘continued decline’ in market volumes and weakness in its Merchanting segment for the fall in sales, which despite better cost discipline pushed operating profit down from £161 million to just £2 million and forced it into losses at the pre-tax level.
On the positive side of the ledger, there was good progress in the Toolstation business which increased operating profit by almost 50% thanks to strong sales and supply chain and overhead efficiencies.
In its more recent update (29 April), Travis Perkins said trading ‘remained challenging’ in the first quarter of 2025 with group revenue down 2.1% on a like-for-like basis; while revenue was down 3.2% in the Merchanting segment, sales were up 3.7% at the resilient Toolstation business.
