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Howden Joinery Group Plc Factsheet

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Key facts

• Howden Joinery Group Plc is the parent company of Howdens Joinery, a leading supplier of kitchens and joinery to trade customers across the UK.
• Howdens' core customers are local builders. We help them to sell, design, install and finish the job quickly and profitably. The more successfully we help them to trade, the more successfully we will trade.
• Our competitive position is underpinned by our strong entrepreneurial culture; the inherent growth in our depot portfolio; close relationships with our builder customers; the breadth of the market they serve; the quality and range of our products; and the opportunity we have to streamline the business around supplying one customer, the small builder.

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Howdens' mission is
"to supply from local stock nationwide the small builder's ever-changing routine kitchen and joinery requirements, assuring no-call-back quality and best local price."

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• Howdens was founded in 1995. By the end of December 2011, Howdens had grown to a company with a turnover of over £850m operating out of 509 depots across the UK.
• Howdens employs around 6,000 people in manufacturing, sourcing, logistics and depots. Manufacturing is carried out at two sites in Cheshire and Yorkshire. The business has warehousing and transport operations in Cheshire, Yorkshire and Northamptonshire.
• Each year, Howdens supplies around 250,000 building trade professionals with around 3.5 million kitchen cabinets, 2 million doors and 400,000 complete kitchens.

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Financial highlights

£m	2011	2010	2009
Continuing operations (before exceptional items)
Revenue
- Group	853.8	807.9	769.5
- Howden Joinery UK depots	838.7	795.1	756.4
Operating profit	114.3	107.4	79.5
Profit before tax	110.0	100.9	68.7
Basic earnings per share	13.4p	11.3p	8.3p
Net cash/(borrowings)	57.0	35.0	2.4

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Expertise
"We couldn't do without their plans. That's what you base everything on."
From in-depth interviews carried out with Howdens' customers in June 2008

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UK depot expansion

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Integrated business model

We aim to work as efficiently as possible by continually asking ourselves these questions:

• What do they need?
  How is this changing?
• How can we develop our relationship with builders?
  Where will our new customers come from?
• Can we operate more efficiently?
• How can we develop our distribution process?
• What is lowest cost production?
  What do we need to manufacture?
• Where and how should we source product?

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Reliability
"The best thing is we get the product when we need it."
From in-depth interviews carried out with Howdens' customers in June 2008

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Board of directors

• Will Samuel
  Non-executive Chairman

  Will was appointed a non-executive director and Chairman designate in July 2006 and became Chairman in October 2006. He is Senior Advisor to Lazard & Co Ltd, Chairman of Ecclesiastical Insurance Group plc, Deputy Chairman of Inchcape plc and a non-executive director of the Edinburgh Investment Trust plc. He was also appointed a Senior Adviser to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in January 2012. Prior to this he was a director of Schroders plc, Co-Chief Executive Officer at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney (a division of Citigroup Inc) and Vice Chairman, European Investment Bank of Citigroup Inc and Chairman of H P Bulmer plc. He is a Chartered Accountant.

• Matthew Ingle
  Chief Executive Officer

  Matthew was appointed Chief Executive in October 2005. He set up Howden Joinery in 1995 and has been responsible for its growth into a successful business today. Prior to joining the Company he had been Managing Director of the Magnet Trade operation. He was elected to the Board of the Company in 1998.

• Mark Robson
  Chief Financial Officer

  Mark joined the Board in April 2005 as Chief Financial Officer. Mark spent the previous six years as Group Finance Director at Delta plc. Prior to this, he had held a number of senior financial positions with ICI between 1985 and 1998. He is a Chartered Accountant and qualified with Price Waterhouse.

• Mark Allen
  Non-executive director

  Mark was appointed a non-executive director in May 2011. Mark is CEO of Dairy Crest Group plc. After a brief period at Shell between 1986 and 1991, Mark joined Dairy Crest in 1991 as a general manager and, after being promoted through a variety of roles including Sales & Operations Director and two divisional Managing Director roles, he was appointed to Dairy Crest's main Board in 2002, becoming Chief Executive in 2006. He is Chairman of The Prince's Rural Action Programme and a Trustee for The Prince's Countryside Fund.

• Angus Cockburn
  Non-executive director

  Angus was appointed a nonexecutive director in October 2006. He has been Group Finance Director of Aggreko plc since 2000, having previously been Managing Director of Pringle of Scotland and Regional Finance Director Central Europe for Pepsico Foods. He is a Chartered Accountant and qualified with KPMG Peat Marwick.

• Tiffany Hall
  Non-executive director

  Tiffany was appointed a nonexecutive director in May 2010. Currently Group Marketing Director at BUPA, Tiffany was previously Head of Marketing at British Airways. She was also Chairman of Airmiles and BA Holidays. Prior to that, she held various positions at British Airways including Head of Global Sales and Distribution and Head of UK Sales and Marketing. Tiffany was previously a nonexecutive director of Think London.

• Michael Wemms
  Non-executive director

  Michael was appointed a nonexecutive director in November 2006. Michael was Chairman of House of Fraser plc from 2001 until November 2006 and was an executive director of Tesco plc from 1989 to 2000. He is a non-executive director of Moneysupermarket.com plc. He was Chairman of the British Retail Consortium from 2004 until 2006.

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Value
"I can rely on Howdens ... That level of service is just not available anywhere else and it's worth a fortune to me."
From in-depth interviews carried out with Howdens' customers in June 2008

Contacts

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Website

• 
  www.howdenjoinerygroupplc.com
• 
  www.howdens.com

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