Pete Redfern was chief executive of house-builder Taylor Wimpey for 14 years until 2022. On 16th September 2024 he joined builders’ merchant group Travis Perkins as chief executive.
In a trading update today, he said: “My first few weeks at Travis Perkins Group have reaffirmed that this is a business with many strengths – the quality of our nationwide branch network, strong customer and supplier relationships and, above all, an experienced team of branch managers and commercial leaders within the business.
“Travis Perkins Group plays a critical role in the construction industry. Connecting our customers with the products and tools they need and removing the friction from fragmented and complex supply chains will be core to our strategy.
“However, it is clear that the group has allowed itself to become distracted and overly internally focused which has led to the underperformance in recent periods. We now need to get back to a focus on operational execution – delivering great products and great customer service and better leveraging our reach and scale.
“Over the last nine months the team has made good progress on implementing cost discipline, improving working capital management and exiting Toolstation France. In addition to supporting these ongoing actions, my immediate priorities are driving and incentivising branch-led performance and motivation, identifying further ways to make the business run more efficiently and ensuring that we turn and face the anticipated recovery in the UK construction market.
“During this important period, I will combine the roles of group chief executive and managing director of the Travis Perkins General Merchant business. This will allow me to shorten reporting lines and develop our new strategy, working closely with the operational leaders of this business as well as the group leadership team. I am confident that together we can bring significant improvements in performance and the execution of change.”
He also revealed that Travis Perkins group revenue was down 5.7% in the third quarter of the year, with the General Merchant business losing market share over the summer in the run-up to Redfern’s arrival.
