28 March 2024, 08:58
By Furniture News Oct 02, 2018

ScS prevails despite concession downturn

ScS cites "a strong year of profitable growth and increased resilience" in its preliminary FY18 results, ended 28th July 2018.

LFL orders increased +0.2% during the period, and revenue grew by £4.3m to £337.3m.

CEO David Knight comments: “2018 has been another strong year. Despite a prolonged period of economic uncertainty and challenging trading conditions, we have continued to grow the business. I believe this is due to our continued focus on what we do best - ensuring that we offer an excellent customer experience with outstanding value, quality and choice. The downturn in sales in our House of Fraser concessions has been more than offset by growth in our core ScS business. This has been aided by record results from our online channel, which has seen a +22.6% increase in gross sales.

"Gross profit increased to £157.3m, with our gross margin percentage increasing 67bps to 44.7%. EBITDA increased +8.1% to £18.8m and profit before tax rose +10.5% to £13.2m.

"Since the start of the current financial year, the overall trading performance of the group has been in line with our expectations. Due to the ongoing changes at House of Fraser, trading within our concessions, which represented 7.1% of FY18 gross sales, remains challenging and we are working with the new owners to address this as a priority. Performance in our core ScS business has been encouraging."

Sales order intake over the nine weeks to 29th September was up +2.1% on a LFL basis.

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