Even after stripping-out a £4.8m gain from the sale and leaseback of freehold property and Laura Ashley’s pre-tax profit reached £5.7m - up from just £0.1m a year earlier. Indeed, and despite a still gloomy UK retail market, there was like-for-like sales growth across all categories - furniture, home accessories, decorating and fashion.
Predictably, fashion was the laggard - although, even there, like-for-like sales grew 1.6 per cent. But it’s actually the furniture side, which is now the largest product area, that’s leading sales growth - like-for-like sales grew 9.2 per cent there. This was achieved despite a fall during the half in the number of stores from 231 to 225. The emphasis now is on smaller new concept stores and increasing the density in the existing outlets, as well as expanding the franchise operation further. What’s more, two new territories are being added to the franchising - South Korea and Jersey. The e-commerce and mail order operations are performing well, too. In fact, e-commerce sales jumped 63 per cent and, combined with mail order, now represent 14 per cent of overall sales. Good cost control is also paying-off and the cash pile continues to build.
Numis Securities expects full-year pre-tax profits of £14.4m, giving EPS of 1.4p (2010: £11.2m/0.82p).
LAURA ASHLEY (ALY) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 15p | MARKET VALUE: | £112m | |
| TOUCH: | 14-15p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 20p | LOW: 12p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 8.3% | PE RATIO: | 8 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 8p | NET CASH: | £31.2m | |
| Half-year to 31 Jul | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 128 | 1.10 | 0.11 | 0.25 |
| 2010 | 135 | 10.5 | 1.20 | 0.50 |
| % change | +5 | +855 | +991 | +100 |
Ex-div:13 Oct Payment:10 Nov | ||||
