HIGH Street retailer Storehouse announced an expansion package yesterday, along with a 6% increase in annual profits and sales trends above forecast since the beginning of May.
The company, owner of clothing and household chain British Home Stores and Mothercare, said it will create 1500 jobs around the country with 12 new BhS stores to increase its national coverage.
This will include one opening in Scotland, at Braehead, near Glasgow. The additional stores will increase costs but this should be measured against margin gains and sales growth, said the company.
Group pre-tax profits for the year to March 28 emerged at #125.1m, up from #118.3m on sales ahead by nearly 7% at #1335m.
The firm's improving sales performance in the second half had carried on into the first seven weeks of the current year.
Storehouse chief executive Keith Edelman said BhS had clearly benefited from the closure of the Littlewoods sites. ''I think we're doing very well in those areas where Littlewoods closed their stores,'' he said, noting strong improvement in BhS restaurants.
Edelman said the company was confident of good comparable store sales growth for the future, and that BhS had cut back significantly on price discounting.
He acknowledged that the retailer was still not at the top of the league.
BhS boosted sales by 6% to #853.7m and retail profits by 9.2% to #96.5m. Sales, excluding new space, rose 2.2% for the year as a whole and by 2.9% in the second half.
Mothercare, the childrenswear and nursery equipment chain, increased total sales by 8.9% to #481.3m and retail profit by 1.8% to #31.4m. UK sales on a like-for-like basis were up 1.8%.
Shareholders are to receive a final dividend 5.4p, lifting the total from 8.1p to 9p.
The shares, which have been trading at a sizeable discount to the market, firmed 12.5p to 256p.
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