Eurocell, the UK manufacturer of PVC-U window systems, has stated that its 2025 acquisition of aluminium fabricator Alunet provided the majority of the group’s profits, as the main business continued to feel the effects of a stalled housing market and squeezed household spending on home improvements.
The South Normanton-based group reported a 10 per cent rise in adjusted operating profit to £11.1mn for the six months to the end of June 2026, on revenue up 6 per cent at £205.2mn. Stripping out Alunet, however, organic sales rose just 1 per cent, with the first quarter down 2 per cent before a modest recovery in the second.
The figures underline the extent to which Eurocell, like much of the wider fenestration and building products sector, remains exposed to a housing market squeezed by high mortgage rates and weak consumer confidence, only partially offset by inorganic growth. Alunet, bought for an initial £22mn last year, lifted its own adjusted operating profit to £4mn, more than double the equivalent period, while the group’s Branch Network division benefited from a 29 per cent rise in window and door sales and a 49 per cent jump in e-commerce revenue, to £4.4mn.
By contrast, the Profiles division, Eurocell’s traditional extrusion business, saw revenue fall 5 per cent and adjusted operating profit drop 24 per cent to £6.3mn, as new-build housing activity weakened further and demand from trade fabricators for repair, maintenance and improvement work softened. Group gross margin slipped to 50 per cent from 52.6 per cent, as competitive pricing offset efforts to pass on higher input costs.
Statutory operating profit fell 72 per cent to £1.7mn, after the group booked £9.6mn of non-underlying charges relating to restructuring, including the closure of 10 branches in July. These closures included an exit from the Republic of Ireland and a scaling back of its London footprint, alongside the consolidation of two recycling plants onto a single site in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. The group swung to a pre-tax loss of £1.4mn, from a £3.8mn profit a year earlier.
Will Truman, who took over as chief executive in February, said trading conditions had remained difficult but that the group’s underlying performance had been “robust, despite weak trading conditions, rising input costs and the effects of the situation in the Middle East.” He said momentum built in the second quarter had carried into the second half, and that he remained confident in “the medium and long-term prospects for the UK construction market.”
Michael Scott, chief financial officer, said the group had maintained “a strong balance sheet with good headroom” on its £75mn revolving credit facility, renewed in March, even as net debt on a pre-IFRS 16 basis rose to £28.1mn.
The interim dividend was raised 9 per cent to 2.5p a share. Eurocell also disclosed a £5mn acquisition of garden room fabricator ATT Fabrications, completed this month, as it seeks fuller control of margins in a product line it said had grown revenue from around £4mn in 2022 to roughly £10mn last year.
With branch expansion paused until the economic outlook clears and further restructuring savings of about £3.5mn expected annually from 2027, analysts are likely to focus on how quickly organic demand recovers once cost-cutting measures work through the business.
Why This Matters: Eurocell’s results confirm that demand for windows and doors is weak. Growth is currently driven by acquisitions rather than organic sales. Purchases of companies like Alunet and ATT Fabrications are hiding a decline in the core market, while branch closures and site consolidations show that margins are under pressure. For the rest of the sector, these results indicate that recovery depends on a return of housing confidence and RMI spending. Restructuring alone will not be enough, and most competitors do not have the capital to use acquisitions to compensate for low demand.
