Sanderson Design Group designs luxury wallpapers, fabrics and paints under names such as Morris & Co., Sanderson and Zoffany. It also prints for other brands and licenses its designs for rugs, blinds and tableware. Profit fell from £12m to £4m in two years as UK demand weakened. It has since recovered to £5.3m in the year to January 2026 and £3.3m in the first half of the current year. It now faces an activist shareholder demanding a change of chair.
Heritage designs, two factories and a licensing arm
The group sells wallpapers, fabrics and paints through trade customers and, increasingly, direct to consumers online. Its brands are Morris & Co., Sanderson and Zoffany (heritage), Clarke & Clarke, Harlequin and Scion (contemporary), plus Designers Guild, newly added under licence. It has about 500 staff and showrooms in London, New York and Chicago.
Money comes from three streams. Brand product sales were £35.5m in the half to July 2026. Manufacturing is the second stream: factories at Anstey (Loughborough, wallpaper) and Standfast & Barracks (Lancaster, fabric) print for the group's own brands and for other brands, and third-party work brought in £11.0m. Licensing is the third: partners pay to use the designs, and the group has described licensing as a 100% margin business because incremental costs are very low. Licensing brought in £4.9m. 12 Oct 2026 24 Apr 2024
A record licensing year, then a weak UK
In the year to January 2024, licensing hit a record £10.9m, helped by deals with NEXT and Sainsbury's. That covered for falling UK demand and kept adjusted profit at £12.2m on £108.6m of revenue. Management picked North America as the growth market and said it was 'under indexed' there.
Then the UK, the largest market, weakened further. In June 2024 the company said profit would be below earlier expectations, at about £8m. In January 2025 it cut its forecast to £4.0m-£4.8m. The shares fell from 127.5p at the end of January 2024 to 42.5p in April 2025. 11 Oct 2023 24 Apr 2024 27 Jun 2024 20 Jan 2025 16 Oct 2024
Write-down, dividend cut and cash drain
Results for the year to January 2025 showed revenue down 8% to £100.4m and adjusted profit of £4.4m. The group wrote off £16.3m of goodwill from its 2016 purchase of Clarke & Clarke, producing a statutory loss of £13.9m. The dividend fell from 3.5p to 1.5p. Cash dropped from £16.3m to £5.8m, which included a £2.3m payment in June 2024 to transfer a pension scheme to an insurer.
The company said the Clarke & Clarke write-down aligned the brand with current industry valuations. It added that the brand remained important. 30 Apr 2025 19 Jun 2024
Cutting costs and rebuilding the factories
The company hired a Group Operations Director in November 2024 to lead a manufacturing restructuring called Future Factory. It first stated £1.5m of annual factory savings in April 2025. It added about £1m of head-office savings in 2025, making £2.5m in total. By its own count, costs are down about £4.8m a year over three years.
Alongside the cuts, it moved printing towards digital methods, built direct-to-consumer websites for every brand and relaunched its online trade platform. It also cut inventory to raise cash. 4 Nov 2024 30 Apr 2025 15 Oct 2025 7 Aug 2025
What explains the swings
Two things drove the record. First, a large UK market for high-end furnishings turned weak, and the group had no quick offset. That hit brand sales and also the volume going through its own factories. Second, high fixed costs in manufacturing and head office turned lower sales into a steep profit fall. Licensing, which has almost no costs attached, cushioned profit in good years but is uneven: accelerated income from newly signed deals can inflate a period. 24 Apr 2024 16 Oct 2024 30 Apr 2025 15 Oct 2025
Cost cuts delivered, forecasts missed along the way
Chief Executive Lisa Montague and Chair Dianne Thompson cut costs and pushed North America, online sales and manufacturing. They had cut forecasts twice during 2024-25. Since then they have mostly delivered what they said. Manufacturing returned to profit by the January 2026 year end, close to the 'around break-even' promised in June 2025. Direct-to-consumer sites went live for all brands, and the Huntington collection launched on schedule.
In June-July 2026 the CEO, a non-executive director and the Global Commercial Director each bought shares, at 75p-78p. The progressive dividend promised in April 2025 'when trading conditions improve' has not returned; the interim stays at 0.5p. 29 Apr 2026 25 Jun 2025 12 Oct 2026 6 Jul 2026 9 Jul 2026 28 Jul 2026 30 Apr 2025
Growing again, with a fight over the chair
Half-year revenue to July 2026 rose 6% to £51.4m and adjusted profit rose 47% to £3.3m. North America brand sales grew 16% to £13.0m and are now the group's most profitable market. The Highgrove by Sanderson collection was its most successful launch. The UK fell 8% and Clarke & Clarke fell 13%. Direct-to-consumer sales rose to £1.6m. Net cash was £10.4m after £1.3m of share purchases for an employee trust. The latest close, on 9 October 2026, was 77.0p.
In September 2026 the company signed a 10-year licence from Dunelm for worldwide rights to the Designers Guild archive across wallpapers, fabrics and paint. Meanwhile, LBV Asset Management, whose stake rose from about 10% in June to 14.1% by 11 September, requisitioned a general meeting. It wants to remove Chair Dianne Thompson and appoint Stephen Brooke. The requisition cites 8.57m shares, 11.85%. The board unanimously opposes both resolutions, and the meeting is on 29 October 2026. The company has not said why LBV is acting. 12 Oct 2026 25 Sep 2026 28 Sep 2026 2 Jun 2026 11 Sep 2026
“We have the right strategy, the right products and, importantly, the right people to build on the momentum we have created.” 12 Oct 2026
In line for the year; open questions on North America, the UK and the board
The board expects full-year trading to be in line with market expectations. Those expectations, stated in the interim results of 12 October 2026, are £6.5m adjusted profit before tax on £102.0m revenue for the year to January 2027. The company reports a positive order book for manufacturing in the second half and says North America should soon overtake the UK as its largest market. It plans a Designers Guild online shop in the second half, and capital spending on digital printing will be weighted to the second half. The board plans to begin the search for a successor to the chair in January 2027.
Open questions: whether North America and manufacturing can keep growing as the UK stays soft; how Designers Guild adds to profit; and the outcome of the vote on the chair. Separately, directors' share awards vesting in 2029 are set at £13.2m of adjusted profit for target and £16.2m for maximum. These are incentive terms, not company guidance. 12 Oct 2026 26 Jun 2026
Written by AI from Sanderson Design Group's own announcements since Oct 2023 · every paragraph links to its sources