Chairman’s Statement
"We remain focused on executing our strategy to be the largest vertically integrated dental services business in Europe."
helping the nation smile
I am delighted to report that this has been another strong year for the Group. The number of practices operated by us across the UK now exceeds 600 and the steps we took at the end of 2013 to strengthen our business, with the appointment of our new CEO Terry Scicluna has continued with the appointment of our new COO Annette Spindler at the beginning of 2014. Both Terry and Annette bring a wealth of experience in healthcare to our business.
We are enjoying recent strong growth in both NHS and private dentistry. We are particularly pleased with the growth shown in private dentistry. As IDH continues to pursue its five-year growth strategy to expand its practices to over 1,000 across the United Kingdom it has added to its practice services arm with the acquisition in April 2014 of the Dental Directory group, one of the largest providers of dental consumables and services in the UK.
The acquisition of the Dental Directory group was a major achievement and signalled a step change for the business. Alongside “dbg” our specialist engineering and training business, this enables us to offer a full suite of products and services both to our Group practices and to over 7,500 independent dental practices across the UK.
Outlook
We remain focused on executing our strategy to be the largest vertically integrated dental services business in Europe, providing a great customer and patient experience, profi table growth through creating opportunities to provide more value-added services. This will continue to be underpinned by our investment in those areas that support scalable and effi cient delivery of an excellent clinical service to patients.
Finally, on behalf of the Board, I would like to thank everyone across the Group for their continued commitment and passion during a year that marks a further successful step in the overall transformation of the Group. We remain focused on executing our strategy to be the largest vertically integrated dental services business in Europe.
PAUL PINDAR
NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN
Annual Review 2013-2014 HR