Preliminary Announcement of Final Results for the year ended 31 July 2021

Record results with significant revenue growth, achievement of our 20% adjusted operating margin target and delivering on our sustainability agenda

Volution Group plc (“Volution” or “the Group” or “the Company”, LSE: FAN), a leading international designer and manufacturer of energy efficient indoor air quality solutions, today announces its audited financial results for the 12 months ended 31 July 2021.

RESULTS SUMMARY

¹ 2021 includes lease liabilities of £25.4 million due to the adoption of IFRS 16 (2020: £23.1 million).

The Group uses some alternative performance measures to manage and assess the underlying performance of the business. These measures include adjusted operating profit, adjusted profit before tax, adjusted EPS, adjusted operating cash flow and net debt. A definition of all the adjusted and non-GAAP measures is set out in the glossary of terms in note 25 to the condensed consolidated financial statements. A reconciliation to reported measures is set out in note 2 to the condensed consolidated financial statements.

Financial highlights

• Significant revenue growth up £56.0 million to £272.6 million (2020: £216.6 million; 2019 £235.7 million) including organic growth of 22.0% (20.5% at cc) and inorganic growth from the three acquisitions in the year of 3.8% (3.9% at cc)
• Achieved our 20% adjusted operating margin target six months earlier than planned with adjusted operating margin of 20.9% (2020: 15.6%; 2019: 17.8%) despite ongoing supply chain challenges and inflationary pressures faced by the Group 
• Reported profit before tax £30.0 million (2020: £14.6 million) 
• Business remains highly cash generative with operating cash flow up 31.2% to £56.9 million (2020: £43.4 million), and strong cash conversion of 97%, as a result of our asset light business model
• £42.2 million invested in three acquisitions in the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland further enhancing our product range and low-carbon credentials
• Net debt (excluding lease liabilities) stable at £53.8 million (2020: £51.1 million) with leverage (measured as net debt excluding lease liabilities divided by adjusted EBITDA) ending the year at 0.9x (2020 1.3x)
• Adjusted earnings per share of 21.0p with a compounded annual growth rate of 13.2% since IPO in 2014
• Dividends resumed, with a total dividend for the year of 6.3 pence per share reflecting strong profitability, free cash generation and confidence in our business model to deliver continued growth

Operational highlights

• The safety and wellbeing of our employees through the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic remains our number one priority with some of our regions still experiencing local ‘lockdowns’  
• Three acquisitions completed in the year, ClimaRad in the Netherlands, Klimatfabriken in Sweden, and Rtek in Finland with a fourth transaction to acquire ERI Corporation signed during the year with completion in early FY22 
• Relocated our principal factory in Sweden to a more energy efficient and well invested facility in Växjö with considerable capacity headroom to support our ambitions for growth in the region
• Continued investment in the most innovative and energy efficient ventilation solutions for our markets to meet the growing needs and awareness of how ventilation in buildings is critical to health and the reduction of Covid-19 transmission risks 
   

Healthy Air, Sustainably

•  Awarded the LSE Green Economy Mark – Our products save energy, reduce carbon emissions and help to build healthy sustainable homes and buildings 
• Our business is committed to a Net zero roadmap and is carbon neutral for scope 1 and 2 emissions this year
• Good progress against our key sustainability targets with 59.7% (2020: 56%) of plastic used in our own manufacturing facilities from recycled sources, and 62.1% (2020: 59%) of our revenue is from low-carbon, energy saving products
• £150 million Sustainability Linked revolving credit facility established, further underlining our commitment to delivery of ESG targets

Commenting on the Group’s performance, Ronnie George, Chief Executive Officer, said:

“I am immensely proud of our committed employees and the substantial progress we made in the year. We have delivered strong revenue growth, expanded our adjusted operating margin ahead of our 20% target and completed three acquisitions in the year with a fourth transaction completed early in the new financial year. All four acquisitions are ventilation solution providers of predominantly low-carbon solutions and a perfect fit with our purpose of providing “Healthy Air, Sustainably”. We made excellent progress with our key sustainability metrics, increasing the proportion of our sales that are low-carbon solutions and a further increase in the usage of recycled plastic materials in our products. I am particularly proud of the way in which all our employees are embracing our focus on sustainability which provides positive impacts on our environment and customers.

During the year we were impacted by significant disruptions across our supply chain and input cost inflation both for materials as well as in bound and out bound logistics costs. Our agile, flexible, and capex-light business model enabled us to mitigate most of these challenges and our strong trade brands, market share and innovative and wide product portfolio have enabled us to pass on the additional costs through selling price increases.

The continuing Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with a greater focus from governments across the world in dealing with the issues of climate change, has led to a far greater awareness of the importance that indoor air quality and ventilation have on both the energy efficiency and health environment inside buildings. We expect that awareness to continue to grow in the period ahead.”

Outlook

The significant interruptions to the supply chain and high levels of input cost inflation and logistics costs increases which we were faced with throughout most of FY21, particularly in the UK, have continued into the start of the new financial year.  Despite these challenges, as well as recent and ongoing Covid-19 related lockdowns in our Australasian market, overall, we are providing good levels of customer service as well as securing price rises to mitigate the impact of cost inflation. Our service levels have been assisted by actions taken in FY21, notably a strategy of holding more inventory for key raw material components, which has enabled us to mitigate many of the well-publicised and industry wide supply challenges.

The new financial year has started well delivering organic revenue ahead of the same period in the prior year. With our market leading products and brands, implementation of price increases, agile approach to product assembly and supply, and the benefit of the four acquisitions executed in the last twelve months, we expect to make further good progress in the year.

-Ends-

For further information: 

A conference call for analysts will be held at 9:30am today, Thursday 7 October. Please contact volutiongroup@tulchangroup.com to register and for instructions on how to connect to the conference facility.

A copy of this announcement and the presentation given to analysts will be available on our website www.volutiongroupplc.com from 7:00 am on Thursday 7 October.

Certain information contained in this announcement would have constituted inside information (as defined by Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 as amended by The Market Abuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019) prior to its release as part of this announcement.

Volution Group plc Legal Entity Identifier: 213800EPT84EQCDHO768.

Note to Editors:

Volution Group plc (LSE: FAN) is a leading international designer and manufacturer of energy efficient indoor air quality solutions.  Volution Group comprises 19 key brands across three regions:

UK: Vent-Axia, Manrose, Diffusion, National Ventilation, Airtech, Breathing Buildings, Torin-Sifan.

Continental Europe: Fresh, PAX, VoltAir, Kair, Air Connection, Rtek, inVENTer, Ventilair, ClimaRad, ERI Corporation.

Australasia: Simx, Ventair, Manrose.

For more information, please go to: www.volutiongroupplc.com

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements which are made in good faith and are based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as assumptions about future events. You can sometimes, but not always, identify these statements by the use of a date in the future or such words as "will", "anticipate", "estimate", "expect", "project", "intend", "plan", "should", "may", "assume" and other similar words. By their nature, forward-looking statements are inherently predictive and speculative and involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future performance and are subject to factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this document, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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