Positive trading performance against a challenging market backdrop is how Travis Perkins have described their full-year results for the 2019 financial year.

The builders merchants reported like-for-like sales growth of 3.8 per cent for the year with total revenue growth of 3.2 per cent for the year.

Revenues rose in real terms by £220million from £6.741 billion in 2018 to £6.956billion for the 12 months to December 31 2019.

That led to an operating profit of £232million, compared to a £22million loss a year earlier and led CEO Nick Roberts to hail a year of significant progress.

"Against a challenging market backdrop we have delivered a strong operational and financial performance across the Group," he said.

"Our merchanting businesses gained market share as a result of a range of initiatives to improve our customer proposition, including increased local empowerment for our branch managers, while the pace of the Toolstation expansion accelerated.

"The actions put in place to improve our Wickes and Plumbing & Heating businesses meant that both recovered well during the year and made positive contributions towards the Group's overall performance.

"Our strategic progress in 2019 has been significant, but there remains much work to do in order to build stronger foundations for the Group to deliver enhanced returns and long-term growth.

"Our immediate priorities are the regeneration of the Travis Perkins general merchant, continued growth of Toolstation, further simplification of our business and successful delivery of the demerger of Wickes.

"The long-term fundamental drivers of the Group's end-markets remain strong, and our businesses enjoy leading positions in their respective markets.

"Whilst trading conditions in 2019 have been challenging we have seen some green shoots of recovery in our lead indicators, although it remains too early to point towards any tangible improvement in RMI.

"The Group remains focused on delivering against our key priorities, and we are optimistic that we can build on the positive performance in 2019, continue to outperform our end-markets and deliver improved returns for our shareholders."