15th Apr 2025 12:18
(Alliance News) - Halfords Group PLC on Tuesday said it expects to top prior profit guidance for its most recent financial year, and said Graham Stapleton has stepped down as chief executive officer.
Halfords were up 12% at 139.31 pence each in London on Tuesday morning. The stock remains down 7.9% over the past year, however.
The Redditch, England-headquartered motoring and cycling products retailer said it expects underlying pretax profit for the financial year that ended March 28 around the top end of a prior GBP32 million to GBP37 million guidance range. This would be down at least a 4.6% from GBP38.8 million in pretax profit the year before.
Halfords said like-for-like sales were up 2.3% on-year, against "strong prior year comparatives", with a 5.0% rise in financial 2024. It "outperformed" its GBP30 million cost saving target for the year, the company added.
Halfords also on Tuesday said Stapleton is stepping down CEO, to be immediately succeeded by Henry Birch. Birch is the former CEO of retailer Very Group, and was previously also CEO of casino operator Rank Group PLC and of William Hill online.
"This is a performance to be proud of, mitigating more than GBP30 million of inflation in what continued to be a very challenging trading environment in [financial 2025]," Stapleton said of the annual results.
"After seven years leading the transformation of Halfords from a cycling and motoring retailer to an omnichannel motoring services super-specialist, most recently brought to life through the Fusion programme, it is time for me to hand over the reins for the next phase of the business's evolution."
Looking ahead, Halfords continues to expect the changes to minimum wage and national insurance introduced by the UK government's autumn budget to result in around GBP23 million in incremental direct labour cost during financial 2026.
"We expect to be able to mitigate the entirety of the direct inflationary impact of the Autumn budget in [financial 2026]," Halfords said, but warned: "retail sales remain volatile and the consumer outlook is uncertain".
Halfords noted that it does not export or import goods to or from the US, so has no direct exposure to recent US tariffs. However, the firm expects tariffs to have an "indirect impact" on its supply chain, such as on its product costs, freight rates and shipping times.
The company will provide further details on its outlook in its financial 2025 results release in June.
By Emily Parsons, Alliance News reporter
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