DENNIS’ BLOG – MARCH 2019

Dear colleagues,

As we are now entering the end of 2019’s first quarter, we can already see that we had a positive start on the new year, with our sales on budget and all other KPIs (gross margin, EBIT, Cash, Overhead) better than budget.

During our latest Town Hall meeting, we communicated our strategic priorities clearly and we are on track with our projects, to name a few: the build of our new US Distribution Centre and the Liquitex production transfer to Le Mans.

Liquitex also reached a major milestone with the launch of the new www.liquitex.com. I hope you have all seen it! The new website is 100% managed in house, and includes an e-commerce capability, helping to keep our cost down and a fantastic base for our future. This great digital achievement was possible thanks to the amazing cross functional work of our teams – well done to all involved!

The new Winsor & Newton campaign “Expert Colour. Endless Possibilities.” gives us a strong presence on social media, check it out, and enjoy.

Late February was also the time for Namta, the Art Materials World Tradeshow, in Texas. Our US team met with customers who gave us constructive and upbeat feedback. It was also a good timing in terms of digital brand building assets activation.

In other news, we received very promising results from Deloitte, our audit partner, after checking the closure of our 2018 accounts – credits go to Jonathan and Liam and all involved! As we stressed before, 2019 is a crucial year for the turnaround of our finances and cash flow and this positive feedback show that we are on the right track.

In Le Mans, there was a 3-day audit regarding quality (ISO 9001) and environment (ISO 14001) that resulted in only 1 minor non-conformity – a great improvement from the previous audits so well done to Dominique and his team!

Finally, I would like to thank everyone as most performance appraisals were done on time. All targets are set in a better way and earlier than ever before which will give us a strong base to focus and prioritise the delivery of our financial turnaround this year!

Keep up the good work!

Best,

Dennis