Midwich sounds caution about 'challenging' trading conditions

Midwich has warned its stakeholders that the current challenging market conditions will likely continue until lockdown measures are eased, especially in Europe and North America.

The AIM-listed AV distributor issued a trading update ahead of its AGM stating that it remained confident that its liquidity will help it weather the ongoing economic uncertainty caused by the coronavirus.

The acquisitive distie saw revenue grow by a fifth to £686.2m for its year ending 31 December 2019 in a market it described as "flat".

Earlier this year it shelved its aggressive M&A strategy to concentrate its efforts on navigating through the market turmoil caused by COVID-19, just after it set foot in the US for the first time through its purchase of Starin Marketing.

"The coronavirus crisis has led to very challenging trading conditions over the past two months and we anticipate this will continue at least until lockdown conditions, particularly in Europe and North America, are significantly eased.  At this stage it is unclear how quickly overall business will return to more normal levels," stated Andrew Herbert, chairman of Midwich.

"The group delivered a strong performance in 2019, achieving revenue and profit growth while successfully completing four acquisitions. We remain committed to our established strategy of delivering strong organic growth, supplemented by targeted acquisitions, as well as building our expertise in a broader range of markets and products.

"The actions we have taken across the group to preserve cash and liquidity and reduce cost coupled with our strong balance sheet and extensive credit facilities gives the board confidence that the Group is well placed to deal with the continuing uncertainty, and that it will be in a strong position to respond once markets start to recover."

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• Distributor
• Midwich
• Audiovisual
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