The Homebuy Board of Directors is a "Who's Who" of British Rent to Own; Anne Cadman from BoxClever, Michael Cooper, former Marketing and Merchandising director for BrightHouse, Michael Sweetland, former CEO of  BrightHouse.

Homebuy Group, one of the United Kingdom's largest furniture, appliance and electronics rental companies, reported a 347% increase in pretax profit for the year ending 19 April, 2006.

The company also reports Gross profit up 232% to £69.51 million (USD $127.5 million) and Basic earnings per share up by 180% to 23.0p.

Homebuy has nearly tripled it's employee base in the past 12 months from 414 in 2005, to 1,064 in 2006.

Commenting on the results, company Chairman Michael Riding said, “The Group has continued to make excellent progress and I am very pleased to announce record results for the year. Our acquisition of Telebank, in May 2005, created a step change in activity. Integrating the two businesses, while maintaining strong organic sales growth, has presented plenty of challenges and our people have done an excellent job in these demanding circumstances. We have continued to recruit at all levels and I am pleased that we have been able to strengthen the Board with additional Executive and non-Executive appointments in the second half of the year. We have also significantly strengthened our capital base from both retained earnings and two very well supported share placings which raised over £28 million."

Operational Highlights
Successful acquisition and integration of Telebank.
£75m working capital facilities secured with the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Sales network restructured resulting in improvements in performance.
Sourcing from Far East and product offering widened.
Substantial investment in infrastructure and IT.
Senior management and Board significantly strengthened.
Capital base increased with placings totaling over £28 million

Homebuy has also increased its product offering to customers earlier this year. The increased range includes furniture which has been extremely well received. Sales of additional products to our existing customers have grown significantly during the year.

The Telebank acquisition, in May 2005, has contributed £39.53m to turnover during the year. This business has been fully integrated into the Group’s operations and we have successfully converted the majority of the original Telebank rental customer base to purchase products on the Homebuy consumer finance model.

Board Appointments

There have been several changes to the Homebuy Board;

In March 2006, Anne Cadman, Michael Cooper and John Gilmore were appointed to the Board as executive directors.

Anne Cadman (aged 54) is the Customer Service Director and has had over 25 years experience in the industry having previously worked with BoxClever.

Michael Cooper (aged 44) is the Group Marketing Director having joined the Group from BrightHouse where he was the Marketing and Merchandising director.

John Gilmore (aged 46) is the Group Finance Director. Prior to his appointment to the Board, John has been the Chief Financial Officer for the Group since 2002.

Since the end of the financial year, the Board has been further strengthened by the following two appointments:

Michael Sweetland (aged 51) was appointed as Group Managing Director on 8 May 2006. Prior to joining the Group Michael was the CEO of BrightHouse.

Tom Bartlam (aged 58) was appointed as non-executive Deputy Chairman on 23 May 2006. Prior to joining the Board, Tom was a co-founder of Intermediate Capital Group plc, where he served as Managing Director until his retirement in April 2005.