Halfords Group PLC: Preliminary results for the 53-week period ended 3 April 2026

25 June 2026

Halfords Group plc  

Preliminary results for the 53-week period ended 3 April 2026

Underlying profit before tax ahead of consensus as ‘Optimise’ phase of plan gains traction

Halfords Group plc (“Halfords” or “the Group”), the UK’s leading provider of motoring and cycling services and products, today announces its preliminary results for the 53-week period ended 3 April 2026 (“FY26”). The comparative period is 52 weeks to 28 March 2025, and to aid comparability, all FY26 numbers are presented on a 52-week basis unless otherwise stated1.

Financial highlights

• Group sales grew 4.8% on a like-for-like (“LfL”) basis with Retail +4.1% LfL and Autocentres (ex-Avayler) +5.8% LfL2.
• Gross margin continued to expand, increasing by 210bps year on year (“YoY”)1 to reach 52.8%, its highest level in a decade. This performance more than compensated for an anticipated increase in operating costs, which grew as a percentage of sales due to inflationary pressures and planned investments.
• 52-week underlying profit before tax (“PBT”) increased by 4.1% to £45.4m (FY25: £43.6m) including amortisation of acquired intangibles being treated as a non-underlying item in both periods3. Excluding this change in accounting treatment, underlying PBT grew by more than 8% YoY to £41.5m (FY25: £38.4m). Reported FY26 PBT was £43.6m (FY25: (£30.0m)).
• Return on capital employed (“ROCE”) increased by 160bps to 14.2%4, ahead of our cost of capital which was 10.6%.
• The business generated £25.3m of free cash flow on a 52-week basis, resulting in net cash excluding IFRS 16 lease debt of £11.2m at 27 March 2026 (FY25: £10.1m). 53-week free cash flow was £33.3m with net cash of £19.1m at 3 April 2026.
• Recommended final dividend of 6.0p, increasing the total FY26 dividend by 0.2p to 9.0p based on improved profitability and within the Group’s cover-based policy.

Strategic and operational progress 

• The Optimise phase of our Fit for the Future strategy, designed to build near-term value through disciplined and focused execution, has begun well and is already supporting stronger financial returns, alongside improved customer experience. We see considerable opportunities for further value creation and have generated good momentum into FY27.
• In Autocentres, we have delivered a 50bps increase in operating margin by optimising our operations, further rolling out our Fusion garage concept and driving efficiencies in our labour model, acting to improve utilisation despite the rising cost of employment. Further improvements to processes, equipment and colleague capability are planned in the coming months.
• In Retail, we have laid the foundations for a new category management approach, adding capability, reviewing pricing and promotional strategies and launching in-store trials across our first tranche of relaunched categories. We will implement a rolling programme of category relaunches in the year ahead and will report back on these initial trials in our interim results announcement in the autumn.
• At Group level, we have invested in our digital platform and brand, improving online customer experience and raising awareness of our motoring services proposition, where awareness of Halfords is low relative to our overall brand, which scores very highly. We will continue to invest in these areas in the year ahead.

Outlook

• Actions taken in FY26, alongside some market recovery, have created significant momentum in the business and trading in April, May and June has been strong. We are confident that further progress on the ‘Optimise’ phase of the strategy in FY27 will continue to deliver benefits in this and future years.
• We have not yet seen any changes to customer behaviour from the recent conflict in the Middle East, but we remain sensitive to its potential impact on consumer sentiment and spending power and would expect any impact to take effect from the second half of 2026.
• The change in accounting policy outlined above will increase company-compiled consensus for underlying PBT in FY27 from £45.3m (with a range from £42.0m to £48.6m) to c.£49.0m (with a range from £45.7m to £52.3m). There will be a similar increase in FY28 and FY29.
• We now expect FY27 underlying PBT to be around the top end of the consensus range, with performance weighted towards the first half of the year.

Board changes

• The intention of Keith Williams to step down from the role of Chair and resign from the Halfords plc Board at the next AGM was announced in November.
• The Board is pleased to welcome Jock Lennox to the Halfords Board as its new Chair, as detailed in a separate RNS released today. Jock is a chartered accountant and former partner at EY, with extensive Board and Chair experience at a wide range of businesses including Barratt Redrow plc and Johnson Service Group plc.
• Jock will join the Board on 1 September 2026 and take up the position of Chair following the AGM on 10 September 2026.

Next update

Our next update will be a trading update for HY27 planned to take place in October, followed by our interim results announcement the following month.

Henry Birch, Chief Executive of Halfords, commented:

“I am very pleased with the progress we are making in the ‘Optimise’ phase of our strategy, resulting in the strong results we are announcing today. With good sales growth, higher margins and an increased dividend, we are delivering improved shareholder returns alongside a more compelling customer proposition.

“These are early days in our growth strategy and there is much still to do as we seek to leverage Halfords’ clear strengths: leading market positions, an unmatched physical and digital presence in motoring and cycling, a trusted brand, and a unique services proposition made possible by more than 12,000 expert colleagues. I would like to thank those colleagues for their continued passion and commitment and look forward to working together to help keep our customers moving.

“Finally, I would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Keith Williams, who is standing down as Chair at our AGM in September. Keith has been an exceptional Chair and has guided Halfords through significant change over the last eight years. We welcome Jock Lennox to the Halfords Board as our new Chair and look forward to working with him in the years ahead.”

Headline measures*

FY26 is a 53-week period ended 3 April 2026. The comparative period is the 52-week period ended 28 March 2025. To aid comparability the headline results, associated commentary and percentage changes are presented on an unaudited 52-week basis and are stated post-IFRS 16 unless otherwise indicated.

*Alternative Performance Measures (“APMs”) are defined on pages 12 to 15.

Statutory measures

 1 Throughout this document, YoY movements compare results from the 52-week period ended 27 March 2026 to the 52-week period ended 28 March 2025 unless the measure referred to is a reported performance measure. YoY movements in reported performance measures compare the statutory results for the 53-week period ended 3 April 2026 to the 52-week period ended 28 March 2025.

2 Retail c.60% of Group sales, Autocentres c.40%. Motoring across both segments c.80% of Group sales with cycling the remaining c.20%.

3 In the current period, the Group changed its non-underlying items policy to include amortisation of intangible assets acquired as part of business combinations. This update is intended to simplify the Group’s profit measures and provide greater clarity over the underlying trading performance of the Group. The amortisation charge associated with these assets of £3.9m (FY25: £5.2m) has been removed from underlying operating profit as the associated assets would not have been capitalised in the ordinary course of business. The change has been applied retrospectively, resulting in the restatement of comparative financial information. Meanwhile, revenue and profit from these acquisitions are included in the Group’s underlying results.

4 ROCE is defined as underlying operating profit divided by average capital employed, being net assets less goodwill and adding back net debt. Average capital employed is determined based on the average of the capital employed at the period end date and the preceding period end date. FY26 ROCE is calculated using 52-week underlying operating profit divided by 53-week average net assets.

Investor and analyst meeting: 

A presentation for analysts will take place at 9.30 this morning at Peel Hunt, 100 Liverpool Street, London, EC2M 2AT.
To join the live webcast of this presentation please follow this link:  https://brrmedia.news/HFD_FY26. This will be available for playback after the event.

A recording will subsequently be uploaded to www.halfordscompany.com 

At 12.00 this afternoon, we will also be hosting a live interactive webcast for retail investors, via the Engage Investor platform.  To join the retail investor webcast please follow this link: https://engageinvestor.news/HFD_IP26 

For further information: 

Notes to Editors 

Halfords is the UK’s leading provider of motoring and cycling services and products. We operate via 370 Halfords stores, two Performance Cycling stores (trading as Tredz), 496 consumer garages and a network of 92 commercial fleet locations nationwide. Customers also have access to c.250 mobile service vans (trading as Halfords Mobile Expert and National) and c.550 commercial vans. Customers can shop at halfords.com and tredz.co.uk for pick up at their local store or direct home delivery, as well as booking garage services online at halfords.com. Through its subsidiary Avayler, Halfords also sells the Group’s bespoke, internally developed SaaS solution to clients in the USA and Australia.

Cautionary statement 

This report contains certain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations, and businesses of Halfords Group plc. These statements and forecasts involve risk, uncertainty and assumptions because they relate to events and depend upon circumstances that will occur in the future. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results or developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made only as at the date of this announcement. Nothing in this announcement should be construed as a profit forecast. Except as required by law, Halfords Group plc has no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or to correct any inaccuracies therein.

CEO Review

I am very pleased with our performance in FY26. In November last year we set out our “Fit for the Future” strategy with a clear plan for delivery and even at this early stage are showing good progress on each of the delivery metrics we set out: like-for-like (“LfL”) sales growth for the year was 4.8%, operating margin was stable despite substantial inflationary headwinds, underlying profit before tax (“PBT”) increased by c.4%1, and return on capital employed (“ROCE”) improved by 160bps to reach 14.2%2. These results show that our Optimise initiatives are starting to gain traction, with disciplined execution beginning to translate into improved financial outcomes.

We have delivered this progress within the guardrails of our updated capital allocation framework, which prioritises balance sheet strength and organic investment alongside shareholder returns, with payment of a dividend that is 1.5 to 2.5 times covered by underlying profit after tax. We ended the year with net cash on our balance sheet, deployed capital expenditure within the £55m to £65m target range communicated and continued to manage our costs well in a period of elevated labour inflation. Our prudent balance sheet has served us well in the past, and recent geopolitical instability reinforces why this remains the right approach.

None of this would be possible without the commitment, skill and professionalism of colleagues across the business, from technicians in our garages and specialists in our stores to the teams building our digital, data and category capabilities. I want to thank them not only for the service they provide to our customers every day, but also for the ownership they show in doing the right thing for customers and for the energy they have brought to this next phase of Halfords’ evolution.

Driving utilisation in garages

Autocentres delivered another strong year, with LfL sales ex-Avayler up 5.8% and ex-Avayler 52-week operating profit up £4.0m to £22.3m, an increase of more than 20% from the prior year. The largest component of this reporting segment is our consumer garages business, which delivered faster growth than Autocentres overall with c.8% LfL sales growth alongside a meaningful improvement in profitability. This reflected growth in service, maintenance and repair (“SMR”) which more than compensated for ongoing weakness in the tyres market, albeit some signs of stabilisation in that market were seen towards the end of the year.

These financial outcomes in part reflect the continued rollout of our Fusion model, which has now reached 103 locations and continues to deliver the strong returns we saw in earlier phases of the programme, with contribution doubling on average once a site reaches maturity. Through a phased rollout, we have been able to take our learnings and iterate our approach to continue to achieve positive results as the programme has scaled. With a further c.35 sites to be completed this year, our attention has turned to what comes next. Our experience with the Fusion programme has taught us a great deal about how best to drive utilisation, matching technician hours to service demand at the local level, alongside what physical investments provide the strongest returns and greatest uplift in customer experience. We plan to apply the strongest elements of Fusion more broadly across our estate in future years, generating attractive returns but at a lower cost per garage.

Improving utilisation is our uppermost priority for the Autocentres business. In FY26, we introduced a wide-ranging programme of operational excellence initiatives which, by the fourth quarter, had delivered a YoY reduction in labour cost