Harsh winter conditions sees challenging start to 2026, says insulation giant Kingspan

Despite a tough beginning to the year, the insulation giant said group sales of €2.1bn were up 3% pre-currency and in line on a reported basis

Kingspan CEO Gene Murtagh

Irish insulation giant Kingspan said harsh winter conditions in continental Europe and much of the US resulted in a tough start to 2026.

In a trading update issued on Thursday morning, the Cavan-based multinational said that, despite a challenging first quarter, group sales of €2.1bn in the three months to March were up 3% pre-currency and in line on a reported basis. 

The group also welcomed a "strong" order intake activity across the business, "which augurs well for the rest of the year and beyond."

"By market during the first quarter, Europe overall was solid with a similar pattern in the Americas with the slow start making way for more momentum towards the end of the quarter," the group added. 

Sectorally, Kingspan said tech and data remained "very strong" worldwide with the group's advanced product suite making progress both in insulated building envelopes and advnsys.

Overall sales for insulated building envelopes were 2% behind pre-currency compared to the first quarter of 2025, while insulated panel sales were in line overall with pre-currency, with strong group order intake year to date, which was up significantly on the same period last year. 

Year-on-year growth in the global panels backlog has progressed further since year-end, Kingspan said, with a "modest element of order pull forward evident and a clear outperformance relative to underlying markets."

General insulation activity was sluggish, the insulation giant noted, which was partially mitigated by continued good activity in acoustic solutions and ramping activity for technical insulation as energy cost and availability come into sharper focus.

Net debt at the end of March was €1.9bn, an increase of €54m in the first quarter, which was largely reflecting the seasonal increase in working capital, the group said. 

It added that it had a robust balance sheet with leverage levels currently at around 1.7 times net debt to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda). 

"At the current time, we continue to prioritise the Group’s development agenda over the share buyback programme," Kingspan said.

"The Group's trading outlook, as we move through the early part of the second quarter, is in good shape overall with the inflation recovery effort underway. The Group’s acquisition pipeline remains strong, including scale opportunities that further advance our tech offering and converging solutions. 

"We expect to deliver a full-year Group trading profit in the region of €1.05bn."