LONDON (Reuters) - Travis Perkins (L:TPK), Britain's biggest supplier of building materials, reported a 7.6 percent rise in core profits on Thursday and forecast a pick-up in sales after last year's slowdown in growth.
The firm, which trades through 21 businesses, including Wickes, BSS and Tile Giant, issued a profit warning in October after an unexplained dip in trading last summer but said on Thursday it had seen better repair, maintenance and improvement (RMI) sales in January and February and expected growth to continue.
It expects market volume growth for 2016 to be about 2-3 percent and forecast it would outperform the market by around 1 percentage point while expanding sales space by around 2 percent, giving headline sales growth of 5-6 percent for the year.
The company reported a 7.6 percent rise in underlying operating profit to 413 million pounds ($581 million) last year, ahead of the average of analysts' forecasts of 410.4 million pounds, according to a company survey.
Though growth slowed in its third quarter it picked up in its fourth with the return to growth of mortgage approvals and secondary housing transactions.
Full-year revenue increased 6.5 percent to 5.94 billion pounds, with sales at outlets open over a year up 3.8 percent.
Shares in the company, which joined the FTSE 100 index <0#.FTSE> in 2014, have fallen 11 percent over the last six months.
They were up 1.4 percent at 1,820 pence at 0825 GMT, valuing the company at 4.5 billion pounds.
($1=0.7104 pounds)