Strix Group Plc (LON:KETL) Chief Executive Officer Mark Bartlett caught up with DirectorsTalk to discuss interim results for the six months ended 30th June 2025, highlighting strong performance in Billi and Consumer Goods divisions despite market volatility.
Q1: Interim results now published, Mark. Can you just talk us through the headlines, please?
A1: We’re reporting a bit of a mixed set of results for the first half of the year, particularly given the geopolitical instability and the macroeconomic volatility impacting the small domestic appliance market. That said, Billi has performed very well, securing double-digit growth, which is driven by new product releases and geographic expansion. That’s despite the distraction of moving to a new facility in just six months, providing the space to support our longer-term growth plan.
Consumer Goods also returned to solid growth following a period of restructuring with the filtration products and the manufacturing of appliances within our own facility performing very well. Actually, if you’ve been walking around London, you may well have seen our new advertising campaign as we launched LAICA products across the UK.
However, the Controls division saw more challenges, and despite a strong Q1, we’ve seen a change mainly because of the direct and indirect tariff impacts that came into effect at the beginning of Q2 and the volatility in foreign exchange rates. However, whilst sales were down in that division, we still made good progress operationally with the launch of both the patented next-generation control and the low-cost control range, which has been very well received by our OEMs and brand partners. In fact, several of our partners will have Strix-designed products fitted with these new controls at the October Canton Fair.
Q2: What’s going on in the financials?
A2: Well, revenues were up for Billi by over 10% and Consumer Goods improved by a solid 7%, which is really pleasing given all the work we put in last year to turn the division around. Unfortunately, Controls were down for the reasons explained previously.
We have put the refinance on hold for now, given macro trading volatility, but have secure funding with our existing partners and are working very closely with them. You’ll see that our debt levels have also crept up in the half. This is due to the lower trading levels in Controls and our net debt position increased to 2.21 times, a little bit higher than I would have liked, but still very comfortably within our banking covenants.
Strix Group’s focus for the second half is going to be on an accelerated debt reduction programme to bring these numbers down, while we also balance managing and minimising the impact of the global volatility we’re seeing at the moment.
We also finish paying off the Billi loan in November, which will free up £14 million of free cash flow, which will obviously benefit us from next year.
Q3: I believe you’re making some changes to your reporting and financial calendar. Is that right?
A3: Yes, we have a lot of key dates in our financial year that allow for us to better predict and forecast how sales are going to go in the year. The intelligence we pick up at the Canton Fair twice a year from our brand and OBM partners really influences our sales and our visibility on consumer demand. Being better aligned with these will really help us plan, forecast and report more accurately.
We outlined in our statement this morning that we’re changing our year end to the 31st of March. Shareholders can expect us to give a trading update in November this year, another trading update in spring of next year, and then we’ll publish our audited results for the 15 months to the 31st of March 2026, most likely in July 2026.
Q4: What are Strix Group’s priorities for the second half?
A4: We’re really focused on getting our level of debt down, so we’re implementing an accelerated debt reduction programme. Obviously, we’ll continue to navigate and mitigate where possible the impacts of the macroeconomic volatility we’re seeing in our own markets.
We normally see weighting to the second half of our financial year, and we’re expecting this to be a little bit more pronounced than normal this year, given the soft Q2. I’m pleased to say that we’re seeing some stabilisation in Controls after that slower Q2.
We’re off to the Canton Fair in a couple of weeks. As I said, this is a really important event for us to gather market intelligence, garner sentiment from the OEM community and really catch up with our customers. Typically, we will meet with more than 100 of our key partners over this period.
It’s certainly going to be a busy period for us, notwithstanding the macros. We remain very confident in our medium-term outlook, and we expect results for the 15 months to March to be in line with management’s expectations.
