The Topps Group have published their 2024 Annual Report for the 52-week period ended 28th September 2024. This was accompanied by a 2024 Full Year results presentation.
At the beginning of December, The Times reported that Piotr Lipko, Managing Director of the Austrian investor MS Galleon, wrote to Topps Tiles’ Chairman, Paul Forman, raising concern that the Group had not adapted to the changing retail landscape and citing its comparatively small online business.
In response, Chairman of Topps Tiles Paul Forman said: “We engage with all our larger shareholders on a regular basis and listen closely to their views. Our strategy was reviewed in April and presented to shareholders in May, with further updates given last week. Further expansion of our digital capabilities is at the heart of many of these growth initiatives. Our latest results show that we continue to take market share, consistently outperforming the wider tile market despite very challenging trading conditions. We believe this demonstrates the effectiveness of our strategy, which has the full support of the Board.”
No mention of the shareholders criticism for investment in CTD.
No mention of 2023 £6,000,000 profit to a loss in 2024 of over £16,000,000. That’s a swing of over £21,000,000 hardly something to be proud of. Maybe increased market share but at what cost £16 million loss.
Mr Lipko is right to raise this; fact is more and more sales are moving on-line and businesses have to completely adapt if they are going to remain sucessfull in this rapidly changing landscape. Retailers like Topps need to re-invent their business model if they are going to survive.