Bonmarché reports considerable rise in annual profits

Bonmarché, one of the UK’s women’s value retailers, reported its preliminary results for the year ended March 28, 2015. Group profit before tax was 12.4 million pounds (19.2 million dollars), an increase of 55.3 percent on last year’s statutory figure, or 10.4 percent on an underlying basis. The PBT margin increased from 4.9 percent or 6.8 percent on an underlying basis to 6.9 percent. Total revenue grew by 8.7 percent and like-for-like sales increased by 4 percent.

The company opened 29 new stores/concessions, and the average number of stores open during the year grew from 263 during FY14 to 276 during FY15. Online sales grew by 36.9 percent.

Commenting on the fiscal performance, Beth Butterwick, Chief Executive of Bonmarché, said, “I am satisfied with the current year’s performance, in a year of contrasts between a strong performance in the first half, supported by good weather, versus a more challenging second half of the year. Against this backdrop, we have continued to deliver improvements across the business and have achieved solid profit growth.”

During the first half of the year, sales increased by 11.8 percent and store LFL sales by 7.8 percent. Multi-channel made good progress, growing 50.6 percent compared to H1 the previous year. The warmer than average weather created particularly strong demand for big seasonal categories such as jersey tops, cropped trousers, shorts and swimwear. In the second half of the year, sales increased by 5.7 percent, store LFL sales by 0.2 percent and multi-channel grew by 25.6 percent.

The statutory basic earnings per share for the year were 20.7 pence compared to 23.4 pence in FY14. The underlying adjusted basic earnings per share for FY14 were 18.6 pence per share, and the FY15 basic EPS of 20.7 pence therefore represents EPS growth of 11.3 percent. The board is proposing a final dividend in respect FY15 of 4.5 pence per share.

“I believe that the outlook for the business in the coming year is positive. We have multiple growth opportunities to build upon and our core quality and value proposition will continue to be popular as the market gradually recovers,” said John Coleman, Non-executive Chairman.