Cyber incident to dent Safestyle H1 revenues by 10%, shares slide

Safestyle shares tumbled on Monday after the window and door specialist warned that a recent cyberattack would dent first-half revenues by around 10%.

The company, which announced last month that it had been affected by a cyber incident, said the "highly sophisticated" attack emanated from Russia.

While the issue itself is "largely behind" the group, the interruption to its usual order processing and customer service levels, and the required recovery will have a "material" impact on its expectations for first-half earnings.

"This is expected mainly to impact trading in the first quarter of 2022," it said. "With OTIF (On Time in Full) run rates now quickly expected to return to targeted levels, a strong order book and a high level of confidence that we will maintain good levels of order intake, we maintain our guidance for H2."

Chief executive officer Mike Gallacher said: "This has been another huge challenge for the business, impacting us as we emerged out of the operational disruption caused by the pandemic. Whilst it has been tough, our people have responded with resilience, flexibility and incredible levels of commitment to ensure that we have minimised the impact on our customers and our business performance."

Safestyle said its sales momentum has remained strong and the order book has continued to build. The balance sheet, liquidity and net cash positions "remain healthy" and are comparable to levels communicated at the end of 2021.

At 0815 GMT, the shares were down 11% at 42.31p.