Brick manufacturer Ibstock has announced a 3.9% rise in revenue in its results for the year ended 31 December 2017.

With revenue increasing from £434.7 million in 2016 to £451.6m in 2017, profit before tax also rose 24.7% from £78.8m to £88.3m.

The company also continues to invest in additional UK brick capacity to meet demand, with production underway at the company's new 100m capacity brick plant in Leicestershire. The facility will expand Ibstock's UK brick capacity by around 13% when in full production in 2019.

Chief Executive Officer, Wayne Sheppard, said: "During the summer months demand remained robust and new build products, such as bricks and roof tiles, moved onto waiting times.

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"With demand exceeding supply during this period, some customers did not receive the volumes they wanted when they needed it. Consequently, I am very pleased that we still managed to record a small improvement in our overall Net Promoter Score this year.

"Due to high demand, brick imports increased strongly as the year progressed, reaching over 300 million bricks for the year across the UK market. UK manufacturers sold approximately 2 billion bricks, although circa 0.16 billion of this was supplied from existing stocks.

"In summary, the UK market consumed circa 2.4 billion bricks and UK manufacturers manufactured less than 1.9 billion, leaving a deficit of circa 0.5 billion bricks that was filled through manufacturer destocking and imports."

In addition, Ibstock announced Joe Hudson will success Mr Sheppard as CEO at an unspecified, date later in the year.

Mr Sheppard continued: "I am delighted that Joe Hudson joined Ibstock in early 2018 as CEO designate. Joe has very relevant experience in building materials, most recently with Lafarge Holcim where he was responsible for their UK cement, Bradstone paving and concrete block businesses.

"With experience of manufacturing with high capital cost plant and the sale of aesthetic masonry and commodity concrete building products, he is ideally experienced to be the next CEO of Ibstock plc."

(LM/JP)