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Raw material prices
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The Group is exposed to volatile raw material prices, particularly polymers, due to fluctuations in the market price of crude oil and other petroleum feedstocks, foreign currency exchange rate movements, and changes to suppliers' manufacturing capacity.
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Any increase in the market price of crude oil or other petroleum feedstocks, foreign currency exchange rate movements, or changes to suppliers' manufacturing capacity could have a direct impact on the prices the Group pays for raw materials which could adversely affect its financial results.
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The Group seeks to pass on raw material price increases to its customers wherever possible. There is usually at least a three-month time lag from notification of the raw material price increase before selling prices can be adjusted in the market.
Competitors of the Group are likely to experience the same pressures of any sustained raw material price increases.
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Business disruption
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The Group's manufacturing and distribution operations could be subjected to disruption due to incidents including, but not limited to, fire, failure of equipment, power outages, workforce strikes, or unexpected or prolonged periods of severe weather.
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Such incidents could result in the temporary cessation in activity, or disruption, at one of the Group's production facilities impeding the ability to deliver its products to its customers, thereby adversely affecting the Group's financial results.
In addition, prolonged periods of severe weather could result in a slowdown in site construction activity reducing the demand for the Group's products thereby adversely affecting its financial results.
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The Group has developed business continuity, crisis response, and disaster recovery plans.
The Group performs regular maintenance to minimise the risk of equipment failure.
Finished goods holdings across the operations acts as a limited buffer in the event of operational failure.
The Group has the ability to transfer some of its production to alternative sites and could also subcontract out some of its tooling to reduce any potential loss in production capacity.
The Group maintains a significant amount of insurance to cover business interruption and damage to property from such incidents.
Independent insurer inspections take place across all sites to identify and assess potential hazards and business interruption risks.
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Reliance on key customers
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Some of the Group's businesses are dependent on key customers in highly competitive markets.
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Failure to manage relationships with key customers, whilst continuing to provide high quality products delivered on time in full, and developing new innovate products could lead to a loss of business affecting the Group's financial results.
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The Group's strategic objective is to broaden its customer base wherever possible.
The Group focuses on delivering exceptional customer service and maintains strong relationships with major customers through direct engagement at all levels.
The Group maintains customer service matrices which are continually tracked and monitored with intervention made where required.
The Group closely manages its pricing, rebates, and commercial terms with its customers to ensure that they remain competitive.
The Group continually seeks to innovate and develop its product lines to ensure its products are to the standard our customers expect.
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Recruitment and retention of key personnel
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The Group is dependent on the continued employment and performance of our senior management team and other key skilled personnel.
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Loss of any key personnel without adequate and timely replacement could disrupt business operations and the Group's ability to implement and deliver its growth strategy.
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The Group has a formal succession plan in place facilitating staff retention and progression through the Group.
The Group aims to provide competitive remuneration packages and incentive schemes to retain and motivate key personnel.
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Economic conditions
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The Group is dependent on the level of activity in the construction industry and is therefore susceptible to any changes in its cyclical economic conditions.
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Lower levels of activity within the construction industry could reduce sales and production volumes thereby adversely affecting the Group's financial results.
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The Group closely monitors trends in the industry, invests in market research and is an active member of the Construction Products Association. The Group uses Construction Products Association and Euroconstruct forecasts in its budgeting process.
The Group closely manages its demand forecasts and costs through weekly operational review meetings.
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Government action and policies
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The Group is in part dependent on Government action and policies relating to public and private investment and is therefore susceptible to changes in Government spending priorities.
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Significant downward trends in Government spending on public and private investment arising from economic uncertainty and ongoing austerity policies could have an adverse impact on the construction industry which could impact on sales and production volumes thereby adversely affecting the Group's financial results.
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The Group's strategy is to have its operations structured so that it has a balanced exposure to the residential, commercial and infrastructure construction sectors so as to reduce the impact of any adverse Government action or policy on any one of the construction sectors.
The Group closely monitors trends in the industry, invests in market research and is an active member of the Construction Products Association.
The Group closely manages its demand forecasts and costs through weekly operational review meetings.
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Government regulations and standards relating to the manufacture and use of building materials
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The Group is subject to the requirements of UK and European environmental and occupational safety and health laws and regulations, including obligations to investigate and clean up environmental contamination on or from properties.
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Failure of the Group to comply with changes to environmental regulations and other obligations relating to environmental matters could result in the Group being liable for fines, require modification to operations, increase manufacturing and delivery costs, and could result in the suspension or termination of necessary operational permits, thereby adversely affecting the Group's financial results.
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The Group has a formal Health, Safety and Environmental policy, and procedures are in place to monitor compliance with the policy.
The Group performs internal environmental audits and is subjected to external environmental audits on a periodic basis.
The Group performs weekly and monthly reporting on key Health, Safety and Environmental matters which require the attention of the Board.
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Product liability
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The Group manufactures products that are potentially vital to the safe operation of its customers' products or processes. These products are often incorporated into the fabric of a building or dwelling, or buried in the ground as part of an infrastructure system and in each case, it would be difficult to access, repair, recall or replace such products.
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A product failure or recall could result in a liability claim for personal injury or other damage leading to substantial financial settlements, damage to the Group's brand reputation, costs and expenses and diversion of key management's attention from the operation of the Group, which could all adversely affect the Group's financial results.
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The Group operates comprehensive quality assurance systems and procedures at each site.
Wherever required, the Group obtains certifications over its products to the relevant national and European standards including Kitemarks, BBAs, WRCs and WRACs.
The Group maintains product liability insurance to cover third party claims arising from potential product failures or recalls.
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Information systems
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The Group is dependent on the continued efficient operation of its information systems and is therefore vulnerable to potential failures due to power losses, telecommunication failures, or from an external security breach due to the increasing levels of sophisticated cyber-crime now threatening businesses.
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Disruption or failure of the information systems could affect the Group's ability to conduct its ongoing operations which could adversely affect the Group's financial results.
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The Group contracts with several third party providers to supply off-site, business continuity arrangements for wholesale or partial recovery of the key servers and applications which are used within the various business units of the Group.
These continuity arrangements are subject to periodic validation and testing. Some business units of the Group also take advantage of their multi-site operations to provision server and applications recovery between those sites.
There are a range of local, business unit specific, back up processes which are performed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Firewalls are in place to protect the perimeter of the Group's networks and any off-site access to the Group's servers and applications is through secure Virtual Private Network connections. In addition, email and internet traffic filtering is in place to protect against potential viruses or malware entering the Group's networks. User and server computing devices have anti-virus software installed to protect from potential infection.
The Group continually invests in the maintenance and upgrade of IT infrastructure and information systems. All upgrades are carefully planned and actively managed by senior personnel to minimise potential business disruption.
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Acquisitions
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The management of acquisitions' activity and their integration play a part in delivering the Group's growth strategy and there is a risk that any acquisitions may not perform as expected.
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Ineffective management of
acquisitions could lead to
management distraction, a
drain on financial resources,
and impact on the Group's ability to successfully implement and deliver its growth strategy.
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Full due diligence is performed before any acquisition is made.
The Group seeks contractual assurances from the sellers to mitigate against any identified issues or risks.
Formal Board level approvals are required in accordance with the Group's delegation of authority structure for any acquisition activity.
The progress of any integration is closely monitored at Board and senior management team level.
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Financial risk management
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The Group's operations expose it to a variety of financial risks that include the effects of:
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The Group has in place financial risk management procedures that seek to limit the potential adverse effects of the financial risks as follows:
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Foreign currency exchange risk - The risk that the fair value of a financial instrument or future cash flows will fluctuate because of changes in foreign currency exchange rates. The Group's risk relates primarily to its operating activities where the revenue or expense is denominated in a currency other than the functional currency of the entity undertaking the transaction.
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Foreign currency exchange risk - Foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations could adversely affect the Group's financial results.
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Foreign currency exchange risk - The Group enters into forward currency exchange rate contracts for the purchase and sale of foreign currencies in order to manage its exposure to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates primarily in respect of US Dollars and Euros relative to Pounds Sterling. It is not possible for the Group to mitigate foreign currency exchange rate movements which impact the translation of its overseas subsidiaries' results and net assets as all of the Group's long term borrowings are Pounds Sterling denominated.
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Credit risk - The risk that a counterparty of the Group will not be able to meet its obligations under a financial instrument or customer contract. The Group is exposed to credit risk from its trading activities (primarily from trade receivables) and from its financing activities, including deposits with banks.
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Credit risk - The failure of a counterparty to meet their financial obligations could lead to a financial loss for the Group.
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Credit risk - Customer credit risk is managed by each business unit subject to the Group's established policy, procedures and controls relating to customer credit risk management. Credit quality of the customer is assessed based on an extensive credit rating scorecard and individual credit limits are defined in accordance with this assessment.
Outstanding customer receivables are regularly monitored and any shipments to major export customers are generally covered by letters of credit or credit insurance.
Where the Group perceives there to be a significant credit exposure it will take out credit insurance or obtain an irrevocable letter of credit prior to any transaction.
Credit risk arising from cash deposits with banks is managed in accordance with the Group's established treasury policy, procedures and controls. Investments of surplus funds are made only with banks that have as a minimum a single A credit rating.
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Liquidity risk - The risk that the Group will not be able to meets its financial obligations as they fall due.
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Liquidity risk - Insufficient funds could result in the Group not being able to fund its operations.
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Liquidity risk - The Group's approach to managing liquidity is to ensure that it will always have sufficient liquidity to meet its liabilities when due, under both normal and stressed conditions, without incurring unacceptable losses or risking damage to the Group's reputation.
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Interest rate cash flow risk - The risk that interest rates could rise impacting on the Group's borrowings.
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Interest rate cash flow risk - Increases to interest rates could result in significant additional interest rate cash payments being required on any borrowings.
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Interest rate cash flow risk - To reduce the Group's exposure to future increases in interest rates, the Group has entered into interest rate swaps from variable to fixed interest rates.
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