Topps Tiles incoming CEO faces slowing sales, profit delay at key unit

Dec 2 (Reuters) - British tile retailer Topps Tiles on Tuesday reported slower sales growth in its new fiscal year because of weak consumer demand and said its recently acquired CTD business would take longer to turn profitable, both posing an early challenge for incoming CEO Alex Jensen.

In the weeks leading up to Finance Minister Rachel Reeves’ November 26 budget, which had introduced billions of pounds in tax rises, consumer spending had slumped, dragging on demand for big purchases such as houses and renovation projects.

While the company reported a 46% jump in adjusted pre-tax profit and a 17.5% rise in sales for the fiscal year ended September 27, it said group sales, excluding the CTD business, grew only 3.3% in the first nine weeks of the current fiscal year.

Topps Tiles' shares fell over 7% in early trading, and were leading losses on the FTSE small cap index.

Under long-time CEO Rob Parker, who is retiring next week, Topps has expanded into new categories such as luxury vinyl tiles and shower panels and bought collapsed rival CTD Tiles for 9 million pounds ($11.89 million) in 2024.

Peel Hunt analysts, who had earlier factored in a full year of profitable trading for CTD in their outlook, cut their fiscal 2026 pre-tax profit forecast for the group to 11.9 million pounds from 12.7 million pounds.

Topps Tiles reported an adjusted pre-tax profit of 9.2 million pounds for the full 2025 fiscal year. Revenue, which included CTD contribution, rose to 295.8 million pounds.

The group, which has more than 300 stores across the UK aims to increase sales to 365 million pounds with adjusted pre-tax margin of 8% to 10% over the medium term.

($1 = 0.7568 pounds)

(Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Tomasz Janowski)