30th Mar 2020 11:39
(Alliance News) - SIG PLC on Monday said it will be temporarily closing its sites in the UK and Ireland in response to the evolving Covid-19 situation.
The building materials supplier said that, since Thursday last week, large parts of its UK market have seen sales fall away rapidly, in common with the broader construction industry. Therefore, SIG said it is necessary to temporarily close its UK operations - specifically the Distribution and Roofing businesses.
In addition, the announcement of further restrictions by the Irish government on Friday last week has resulted in the suspension of construction activity in the country. As a result, all SIG trading sites in Ireland also temporarily closed from Monday morning, the company said.
However, SIG said it will remain open to service critical and emergency projects, such as for the NHS, energy and food sectors, as well as for safety reasons and to ensure that there is an orderly closure programme.
The company said it is asking all of its UK and Ireland employees to take lower pay during this period, and it therefore all members of the board to take a 50% cut in pay at this time, from Wednesday.
Turning to 2019 results, SIG said the audit of these is ongoing, and it is anticipated that underlying pretax profit for the year will be in line with its earlier guidance of GBP42 million. For 2018, SIG reported pretax profit of GBP28.5 million.
SIG shares were trading 2.2% lower in London on Monday at 26.50 pence each.
By Evelina Grecenko; [email protected]
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