9th Sep 2020 10:53
(Alliance News) - Quiz PLC on Wednesday said store closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic have hurt its performance over the past five months.
The fashion brand said it has made progress with renegotiating the lease arrangements with its landlords for its standalone stores.
As of Wednesday, the company said it has so far reopened 48 stores and anticipates reopening a total of 60 stores in the UK, compared to 75 in total prior to the restructuring it conducted due to Covid-19. The average lease length on the open stores is 24 months.
Elsewhere, Quiz said it has decided not to reopen any of the Spanish stores. In Ireland, four stores were reopened, with negotiations continuing in relation to two other stores.
Turning to trading, Quiz said the Covid-19 pandemic has hurt its sales. From late March, its stores and concessions were closed and Online operations were suspended for two weeks in April to protect the company's distribution centre workers.
The company's total sales in the five months from April 1 to the end of August amounted to GBP12.8 million, a 77% decline on the GBP55.2 million revenue generated a year prior.
Gross margins generated were 6% lower than the previous year, Quiz said, due to a higher level of discounting. It doesn't expect to do as much discounting in the remainder of the year.
As of Tuesday, Quiz said it had GBP6.1 million of cash available. In addition, the company said it has GBP3.5 million of bank facilities available which are currently scheduled to expire at the end of October, which it intends to renew.
AIM-listed Quiz shares were trading 5.4% higher in London on Wednesday at 7.86 pence each, having reached an intraday high of 8.75p. The stock remains down 55% so far in 2020.
By Evelina Grecenko; [email protected]
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