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Given the climate, the UK results are decent, Europe dragging overall performance down and it was a worsening picture during H2….but once again, it’s the bloody debt that continues to rise. I’m told the new CEO is selling off anything that isn’t core business, so any of those businesses previously classed as Specialist Markets that haven’t been moved into UK interiors or Exteriors are being priced to sell or close (regardless of profitability). Not sure that will clear over £500m of debt, but I guess it might help!

SIG plc's stock price has fallen below its two hundred day moving average, trading at GBX 9.43 ($0.13) compared to the average of GBX 13.18 ($0.18).

The company reported a negative earnings per share of GBX (11.40) for the last quarter and has a negative net margin of 2.35% and return on equity of 28.09%.

SIG has a debt-to-equity ratio of 268.81 and a current ratio of 1.57, indicating potential liquidity challenges

@Teddy100 ….there’s a story I’d love to able to share about Steadmans, but probably shouldn’t! Needless to say it involves experienced people leaving, inept management, which has ultimately left the company valued far far less than what Kingspan were offering!

Justafew….I understand why people throw the disgruntled employee comment around (apparently I’m annoyed because I caught an SIG MD f-ing my wife or some other nonsense) but please try and understand some of the people on here (me included) have lived and breathed this business for years and have slowly watched it destroyed by narcissists and ego-maniacs, sucking any good out of it for the own gain. I would ask anyone on here, who has been in a company most of their life, in an industry all their working life, that they absolutely love, to react any other way when you can see a once great company slowly dying. This isn’t anger or malice….it’s just heartbreak.

Kicc. Gosh & xSI…..we probably all worked together back in the day and I agree with everything you’ve said about mismanagement and various CEOs / MDs with put their own interests first….but I’d also add the whole construction market has changed since then and unfortunately there’s no need (or benefit to the customer) of a lumbering dinosaur like SIG anymore. The future of the supply chain is builders merchants (who now buy as well as distribution) and small specialist distribution, who have the expertise and respond quickly to the customer. You’ll all remember SIG as the market leader and turning over close to £1B….. those days are gone and never to return.

It's always worth reading new ways to polish a poo!

Apparently he’s just a placeholder until a permanent CEO is found, and then he’ll become Chair, not very exciting ….unless there’s a reason they don’t need a permanent CEO and there’s changes afoot (but I’ve been hoping for that, for years)

They could do that with Wolseley (CDR own all of that) and haven’t bothered yet….loads of cost savings to be had by merging us with them and internal / crossover business .

We got told yesterday that The Scarlet Pimpernel, Gavin Slark, has finally left the business. Don’t know if that just means he’s on garden leave or if a new CEO is imminent? Despite the fact that nobody ever saw him anyway, at least he’s finally out of here! What a difference he’ll make to TP!!

My guess is that CD&R will bring in their own person….they’re the majority share holder with two people on the main board and they can’t be happy with the performance or the revolving door. Might not be a bad thing, the company needs breaking up to make it more agile and able to compete with smaller (more profitable) independents

Colin Fothringham was probably the last widely respected Director of SIG and long-timers still talk about him now…..unfortunately that would have been 15 years ago!

Absolutely agree….someone who understand the business rather than those other two idiots on here. Unfortunately the business has been in steady decline since Stuart Mitchell came in, in 2012 and tried to make it a purely transactional business with no appreciation of expertise or customer relationships. A brief return to being customer-centric under Steve Francis / Phil Johns but that now appears short lived!

Oh, there’s plenty of other reasons I could get sacked, don’t worry about that. I’ve done pretty well with the share save scheme over the years and I’ll be retiring fairly soon with a nice pension…..it must be a weakness of mine to care about the future of the company and the hundreds of people that work here!

Ha ha….you’re absolutely right Sandyman, should I post my contract of employment on here just to have your validation! Just get an org chart online if you want to see how many old white guys there are in the company…..I can vouch for their mediocrity!

I just hope it’s an old mediocre white guy…..they’re unrepresented in senior positions in SIG!

The interim results aren’t until August 5th and based on what manufacturers are saying, forecasts for the market are flat this year. Initial optimism about an uplift in H2 are now being revised down. Blocks are currently on allocation, which will further slow down the build supply chain, so any housebuilding optimism is now being pushed back to 2026.

Be interesting to see who presents the H1 interim results to the market because as crazy as it sounds, Gavin Slark remains in the business, despite having been recruited by one of SIGs major competitors.

A number of years ago (after a previous inept board had got the boot) the Non-Exec Chair (same person who remains there now) apologised to a number of senior people for the Non-Exec Board being “asleep at the wheel” (his words) and not dealing with the mess sooner or even spotting how bad things were. Here we all are, a number of years later, and history repeats itself.

Knew you’d come around!

Isn’t the Captain supposed to go down with the Ship?

From within the business (whether you believe me or not)….nobody is shedding a tear!

As much as love the 'bants'.....I'm just trying to offer an alternative view to the typical hyperbole that the price will soon be 25p or 40p or 50p or 60p....by Christmas or by Easter or by Q1 or by Q2 (sound familiar!).

I'll summarise one last time and bow out (if you still want to back this dead horse, that's entirely up to you)....

Any cost saving that SIG refer to are variable costs (people) and this is small beans compared to the HUGE fixed costs they have. SIG's operational costs are significantly higher than ANY of it's competition. If you look at the large comparable competitors, CCF have the buying leverage of TP....Minster have the buying leverage of Jewsons. SIG don't have that leverage because the UK opco (it's biggest) is half the size that it used to be. So, you have a business with a cost base, based on being a £1B business, when it's closer to half of that and it's turnover means it doesn't buy as well as TP or others.

It's also lost loads of experience (those variable costs who have gone to work for the competition) so it doesn't offer the value to the manufacturers that it once did, so again, it doesn't buy as well.

Customers have also changed their buying habits and will now use 5 or 6 suppliers, when they used to use 2 or 3. Merchants are now typically part of a buying group, so they've gone from being a customer to being a competitor, because they buy almost as well as 'specialist distribution'.....this gives the customer far more choice. More choice means they can spread their credit but also drive the price down further.....and of course the market is sh*t, so supply is outstripping the demand by about 20% (and that won't change for a couple of years, based on industry forecasts).

The future of supply into the construction industry is Builders Merchants and smaller, more agile specialist distribution.....SIG is neither.

Good luck to all.