22nd Oct 2015 06:33
LONDON (Alliance News) - Debenhams PLC Thursday reported growth in profit in its recently-ended financial year as it announced that Chief Executive Michael Sharp will step down from his role in 2016.
The FTSE 250-listed department store operator reported a 7.3% rise in pretax profit in the year ended August 29 to GBP113.5 million from GBP105.8 million the year before, in line with market expectations. It said this was down to good progress made against its strategic priorities, including cutting down on promotions and tightly controlling stock, which led to a 90 basis points improvement in gross margin rate.
Revenue grew slightly to GBP2.32 billion from GBP2.31 billion, as like-for-like sales increased 0.6%.
Debenhams will pay a final dividend of 2.4 pence, maintaining its full-year dividend at 3.4p.
"We have delivered profits in line with market expectations, reflecting further progress against our strategic priorities. We have had an encouraging start to the year, with strong new product launches which have been well received by our customers, and we are in good shape to build on last year's strong performance over peak trading," Sharp said in a statement.
"Consequently, we are increasingly confident in the direction of the business and as a result we will accelerate our new initiatives, such as the roll-out of our successful space optimisation trials and new international growth opportunities. We have clear priorities for the uses of cash and our continued strong cash generation has enabled us to improve our leverage target and to adopt a progressive dividend policy as future earnings increase," he added.
In a separate statement, Debenhams revealed that Sharp, who has been CEO of the company since 2011, will resign in 2016. He will assist the board in choosing a successor.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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