Sleepwear brand Peter Alexander is continuing its strong performance for Premier Retail, the business has revealed in its FY21 results.
The sleepwear retailer reported a sales increase of 34.7% to $388.2 million – up $100 million on FY20.
Premier Retail reports that the brand's success stems from the Group's decision to invest in inventory, enabling it to be in stock for key trading periods including Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
Additionally, having Peter Alexander as founder and creative director in collaboration with a strong team, helped to drive strong results for the brand, Premier stated.
Overall, Premier Retail's global sales for the year were up 18.7% to a record $1.4 billion, with like for like (LFL) sales growth of 15.9% on FY20.
Premier chairman Solomon Lew welcomed the strong performance of the business, despite the challenges.
"For 52 of the 53 trading weeks during the 2021 financial year, Premier faced temporary store closures across our global store network due to government mandated closures.
"On average, 176 stores were forced into temporary closures in any given week during the year.
"This resulted in 50,581 lost retail store trading days during FY21.
"Yet today Premier is very pleased to announce record results for the year.
"Today’s announcement is a testament to the skills and dedication of our entire global team.
"To have delivered these record results in a very difficult and volatile environment is a truly outstanding achievement," he said.
While its stores were closed, Premier's online channel was picking up the slack, with the business reporting record online sales of $300.7 million, up $80.3 million or 36.4% on FY20.
During the period, Premier's online sales contributed 20.8% of global FY21 sales, compared to 18.1% in FY20.
"Premier’s 2013 strategic decision to invest in its 100% owned Australian distribution centre has allowed the Group to remain agile and to scale up its online fulfillment in response to unprecedented customer demand providing the Group with significant operating leverage," Premier said in a statement.
"Plans have commenced to expand this facility in calendar 2022 to meet ongoing demand as customers increasingly choose to shop online.
"The Group today has world class customer facing websites and will continue to make major investments in its people, its information technology, digital marketing capability and distribution centres to maximise the increasing customer preference to shop online," the business said.
Recognising the preference for online shopping, Premier has closed 46 stores in the last 12 months, demonstrating its focus on profitable stores.
During the period, Premier's property division was able to reach mutual agreement with key landlords that appropriately rebased the Group’s normalised rent to 13.5% of sales (52-week basis) – a reduction of 339 bps on FY20.
Meanwhile, Premier Retail's other fashion brands – Just Jeans, Jacqui E, Jay Jays, Portmans and Dotti – also delivered record sales in FY21.
The Group reports that the Apparel Brands segment delivered sales of $841.6 million, up 25.3% on FY20 with LFL sales growth for the year up 18.7%.
From 2018 to 2021, the Apparel Brands delivered 25.5% sales growth.
Similarly to Peter Alexander, Premier reports that the Apparel Brands were enabled to perform strongly thanks to an investment into wanted inventory, meaning the businesses were well stocked for the critical summer trading period including Black Friday, Christmas and January sales period.
This strategy continued into 2H21, investing in wanted inventory for Easter, April school holidays, Mother’s Day and the winter season, ensuring a strong in-stock position delivering strong sales and gross margin growth across all brands.
Other key results in the report include a gross profit of $927.9 million, up 25.1% ($186.2 million) on FY20 with gross margin up 331 bps.
Premier Retail delivered EBIT of $351.9 million, up 88.0% on FY20 underlying EBIT.
The business closed the period with cash on hand of $523.3 million at end of FY21.
During FY21 Premier welcomed a new CEO Richard Murray, and Lew thanked long-serving CEO Mark McInnes.
"The Board and I would like to express our sincere thanks and gratitude to our former Premier Retail CEO Mark McInnes.
"Mark has skilfully led the business over the past ten years.
"We look forward to a new chapter with Richard Murray as our new Premier Retail CEO having joined the Group on 6 September 2021.
"The business has a strong balance sheet, seven distinctive brands, a fast-growing online business and a deep and experienced Board and executive team.
"Richard’s leadership will enhance the team as we look for new opportunities to maximise returns for our shareholders and continue to deliver for our customers and stakeholders," he said.