Record Christmas sales and a strong January shopping period have helped boost clothing retailer Hallenstein Glasson Holdings' revenue.
The New Zealand group, which owns
women's fashion stores Glassons and Storm and menswear chain
Hallensteins, has today said that group sales for the six months
ended February 1 2012 were $108.56 million, an increase of 7.9 per
cent over the prior year, which was $100.61 million.
CEO Graeme
Popplewell said the sales improvement had been achieved despite a
difficult retail environment in both New Zealand and Australia.
“It has been particularly pleasing to see the sales improvement in Australia where we are clearly gaining market share in a very competitive environment,” Popplewell said. “However there is still some way to go in Australia before we can return a level of profitability acceptable to the board."
In regards to earning guidance,
Popplewell said net profit after tax for the period is projected to
be in the range of $8.7 million to $9.0 million, an increase of
approximately 25 per cent.
“Gross margin on sales was 57.1 per
cent, a small improvement on the prior period (56.6 per cent),”
Popplewell said. “To hold onto our gross margin in such an
intensely competitive environment has been a key driver in improving
earnings.”
Popplewell, who said strong progress has been made over the past six months in growing sales online, stressed that the group anticipates a difficult challenge to continue the earnings momentum over the balance of the financial year.
“The embedded practice of annual rent increases in excess of CPI that major shopping centre owners are enjoying is increasingly making specialty retail in some centres a marginal proposition, and in common with other retailers we are carefully reviewing our store portfolio,” Popplewell said.