4imprint Group PLC on Tuesday said it has delivered a ‘strong financial performance’ in the first ten months of the year to date, despite ‘difficult market conditions’.

The London-based direct marketer and distributor of promotional merchandise said it expects to report full-year pretax profit at just over $150 million, which would represent around a 6.6% growth from $140.7 million the year before.

4imprint estimates group revenue to be around $1.37 billion, which would be a 3.0% increase from $1.33 billion last year.

The group said the year-to-date total order count in October was 2% higher than the year before. New customer orders were reduced by 9%, but existing customer orders grew 6%, ‘reflecting the quality of customers acquired under the new marketing mix’.

4imprint said: ‘The promotional products industry in our primary North American market has continued to present a challenging trading backdrop. Continuing uncertainty around economic conditions has translated into generally weaker levels of corporate confidence, compounded by specific macro factors over which the group has no control, including elevated interest rates, severe weather events and the distraction arising from the US election cycle.

‘Although these factors have resulted in some pressure on revenue, performance across the remainder of the business has been very satisfactory. In particular, gross profit margin has remained strong at around 32% and the resilience and flexibility of the new marketing mix has enabled us to be agile in tailoring our market investment to the prevailing market conditions. The resulting double-digit operating profit margin is a key facture underpinning our group pretax profit performance.’

Shares in 4imprint were down 5.1% at 5,165.25 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.

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