Travis Perkins sees Q1 sales growth of 7.2 per cent

Like-for-like sales at the Wickes owner grew 5.1 per cent, while two-year like-for-like sales grew 18.4 per cent.

John Carter, chief executive at Travis Perkins, said: “The majority of our businesses performed well against strong comparators in the first quarter, driven by the investments we have made to improve our propositions in the initial stages of our five-year plan.

“The modernisation programme in General Merchanting is now underway and contributed to our market outperformance.

“The Wickes team have built on the positive customer feedback and success of 2014 and continue to take market share. The Plumbing & Heating division is fully focused on its branch network re-segmentation, however the market remains challenging.

Travis Perkins said its contracts division had continued to see strong growth through market share gains.

Mr Carter added: “Our three priorities for the year ahead remain unchanged; the modernisation of Travis Perkins, the transformation of Wickes, and the re-segmentation of the Plumbing & Heating businesses.

“The progress we are making underpins our confidence that the plans we have in place and the investments we are making will support further outperformance of our markets, medium-term double digit operating profit growth and continued growth in return on capital.”