Shares of Skelmersdale, Lancashire-based Victorian Plumbing Group fell about 8% on Thursday after it published an update on current trading that detailed “ongoing inflationary cost pressures” and warned that it expects both gross profit margin and adjusted EBITDA margin to be slightly lower than previously anticipated.

“Victorian Plumbing has continued to trade in line with the dynamic set out in the announcement of our full year results and trading update on 9 December 2021,” said the company.

“Our relative trading performance has been encouraging against a backdrop of lower customer demand.

“Revenue for the four months ended 31 January 2022 was down 3% year-on-year, but up 38% on the same period two years ago, whilst marketing spend has now started to normalise.

“As we look to the second half of the financial year, we note that the comparative period performance for revenue eases and so we expect to return to having modest year-on-year growth through H2 2022.

“There are however ongoing inflationary cost pressures that we face.

“We are acutely aware that our customers are also managing inflationary pressures and will adopt a careful approach to price rises, which means we are choosing to temporarily absorb some additional costs.

“We therefore expect both gross profit margin and adjusted EBITDA margin to be slightly lower than previously anticipated.

 “We remain confident in our ability to continue to take market share and in our long term growth plans.”