First-half numbers from clothing retailer Bonmarché (BON) were good given tough comparatives, but the stock still dropped close to 5 per cent immediately after their release. That might be due to chief executive Beth Butterwick's description of recent trading as "challenging", as a mild November delayed consumers' purchase of that all-important winter coat. Expectations for the full financial year remain unaltered, although Ms Butterwick says this is dependent on trading conditions normalising.
That might have rattled some investors, but there were plenty of positives in the first half. Like-for-like sales grew 2 per cent - a strong showing given underlying sales grew a staggering 13.5 per cent in the first quarter of the last financial year. Online sales also grew 4.2 per cent in the reported period, despite disruption in July when the group's new website went live. Eight new store openings helped boost total sales year on year, but investment in these new sites, the ongoing refurbishment of 140 stores before the financial year-end and a slight slip in margins left pre-tax profits trailing last year. Excluding these items, adjusted pre-tax profits were flat at £6.4m.
Analysts at Investec still expect pre-tax profits of £13.4m for the year to March 2016, giving EPS of 21.3p, compared with £12.4m and 19.8p in FY2015.
| BONMARCHÉ (BON) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 279p | MARKET VALUE: | £139m | |
| TOUCH: | 275-282p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 317p | LOW: 259p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.5% | PE RATIO: | 15 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 56p | NET CASH: | £18.6m | |
| Half-year to 26 Sep | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 91.1 | 6.4 | 10.5 | 2.3 |
| 2015 | 97.0 | 5.4 | 8.4 | 2.5 |
| % change | +6 | -15 | -20 | +9 |
Ex-div: 17 Dec Payment: 22 Jan | ||||
