Market report: Travis Perkins has star billing as City braces for flurry of DIY

Builders’ merchant Travis Perkins looked safe as houses on Wednesday after a strong start to the year.

The retailer, which also owns the likes of Wickes and Toolstation, promised in December to simplify the business after a profit warning in summer and faltering sales.

Five months in and Travis Perkins is “making progress”. Same-store sales were up 7.3% for the quarter, with signs of a good recovery at Wickes, which wobbled last year. The shares followed suit, making Travis the highest riser on the FTSE 250, up by almost 5%, or 68p, to 1472p.

Brokers at Liberum raised the target price from 1450p to 1600p, and Merrill Lynch reiterated its Buy stance, as more Britons gear up for DIY projects and the company prepares to offload its plumbing and heating business this year.

“DIY will remain tough in 2019 but Wickes is in better relative shape than its competitors,” said retail analyst Matthew Walton at research firm GlobalData.

The retailer also gave a lift to B&Q owner Kingfisher, which ended the year on a downbeat note and announced the departure of its boss Véronique Laury. Shares climbed 2.4p to 254.8p.

The FTSE 100 stayed relatively calm on Wednesday despite investors’ concerns about more tariff retaliation coming from the US and Donald Trump, which has destabilised stocks around the world this week. It edged up 4.77 points to 7265.24 after losing ground in the previous session.

Helping the blue-chip index to stay pretty stable were miners and oil producers. However, tobacco maker Imperial Brands and insurer Direct Line dragged it down, falling 103p to 2224p and 5p to 311p respectively.

Country-casual fashion brand Joules on Wednesday bagged a little-known chief executive, Nick Jones — not he of Soho House. Jones will join the retailer before the end of the year from Asda. The City’s reception showed that it was underwhelmed and shares edged down 3.2p, or 1.1%, to 274.8p.

Car dealership Vertu on Wednesday defied the general slowdown with pre-tax profits of £25 million for the year to February 28, better than the City expected but down from last year’s £30.4 million. Chairman Peter Jones, who has been at the firm since 2015, also said he was stepping down in the coming months as the company is “poised for further growth”. There’s no successor yet, but it has begun the search. Shares rose 0.5p, or 1.5%, to 33.5p.

Small Cap Spotlight

Miner Cora Gold’s shares shot up on Wednesday after it said it will start digging at its flagship Sanankoro gold project in Mali. In April it raised £1.3 million from investors — including copper tycoon Lord Farmer and Cora’s boss Jonathan Forster — to fund the exploration. Shares rose 0.75p, or 20%, to 4.5p.