Colefax Group (LSE:CFX), the international designer and distributor of furnishing fabrics and wallpapers, lifted pre-tax profit by 18.3% to £10.53m in the year ended 30 April, up from £8.90m.
Group sales rose 5.4% to £115.92m, or 7.3% on a constant currency basis, while earnings per share climbed 29.8% to 140.7p, partly reflecting share buybacks.
The Fabric Division, which accounts for 90% of group turnover, drove the improvement, with sales up 10.7% on a constant currency basis and profit up 33.4% to £10.62m.
US sales, 63% of the division's turnover, rose 10.2% excluding tariff surcharges, while UK sales grew 4.4% and Europe rose 2.5%.
The Decorating Division fared worse, with sales down 21.1% to £8.86m and a pre-tax loss of £339,000, against a £582,000 profit a year earlier, hit by the abolition of UK non-domiciled tax status and a delayed Middle East project.
The company returned £6.1m to shareholders through an October tender offer, buying back 691,680 shares at £8.80 each, and ended the year with net cash of £23.5m, up from £22.3m.
The board proposed a final dividend of 3.3p, taking the total to 6.3p, up 7% on the prior year.
"The Group has delivered a strong full year result which significantly exceeded our expectations at the start of the year and also the half year", said chief executive David Green, attributing the performance to US sales closely correlated with a resilient US stock market.
Green said sales have remained strong in the US since the year-end, with the company "cautiously optimistic" this continues through the first half of the current financial year, while flagging a significant stock market correction as the main external risk and describing UK and European conditions as challenging.
News Intelligence what this means for the company
Colefax delivered an 18.3% jump in pre-tax profit to £10.53m, driven by a 33.4% surge in Fabric Division profit as US sales (63% of that division) grew 10.2% excluding tariffs. The company raised its full-year dividend 7% to 6.3p and ended with net cash of £23.5m, but management flagged US stock market correction risk and acknowledged challenging UK and European conditions as headwinds.
The profit beat and dividend rise reflect genuine operational leverage in the US fabric business, but the company's explicit dependence on US equity market resilience—and management's own caution about correction risk—introduces material cyclical exposure. The Decorating Division's 21.1% sales collapse and shift to loss underscores geographic and divisional concentration risk.
Insights assembled by AI. Editor-reviewed and grounded in tickstock’s coverage and proprietary knowledge graph.
Content is for informational purposes only, not financial advice.
