Building supplier SIG (LON:SIG) reported a 0.6 percent rise in first-half revenue, despite like-for-like revenues falling in the UK and Ireland.

For the entire group revenues were flat on-year on a like-for-like basis, which the company attributed to fewer working days, with
like-for-like revenues dropping by 3.1 percent in the UK and Ireland.

In a statement, the group said it had delivered a “significant improvement” in operational and underlying financial performance.

“Our transformational plans are expected to deliver meaningful cost benefits in the second half of the year, mitigating the adverse impact of weather on sales and profit in the UK businesses in the early part of the year,” SIG said.

“Coupled with the group’s normal seasonality, this should enable us to deliver a significantly stronger second half to the year.

“Providing there is no further deterioration in UK market conditions, our expectations for underlying profitability for the full year remain unchanged.”

The group announced yesterday that it had hired EY as its auditor, the only Big Four firm eligible to apply for the contract due to conflicts of interest. Investors voted to sack the previous auditor, Deloitte, after the accounting watchdog began an investigation into the group’s audit of SIG.