31st May 2022 09:25
(Alliance News) - B&M European Value Retail SA on Tuesday said it has promoted its current chief financial officer to replace the departing Chief Executive Simon Arora, and also reported a drop in annual dividend on the back of stagnating profit.
B&M shares were down 9.5% at 414.71 pence each on Tuesday morning in London, making it the worst performer in the FTSE 100.
The Luxembourg-headquartered variety goods value retailer said the appointment of Alex Russo as its new chief executive officer reflected the outcome of a "thorough assessment and external benchmarking process over the last six weeks."
"The board will now consider the most appropriate handover plan. A process to recruit a successor to Alex as CFO has already begun. In the meantime, both Simon and Alex will remain in their existing roles in order to minimise disruption to the business. A further announcement will be made when appropriate," B&M added.
Turning to its results, B&M reported flat annual profit despite a decline in revenue.
For the 52 weeks ended on March 26, pretax profit was stable at GBP525 million, while revenue slipped to GBP4.67 billion from GBP4.80 billion the year prior.
B&M declared a final dividend of 11.5 pence, falling from the 13.0p final payout offered last year. The total dividend was cut to 16.5p from 17.3p.
Outgoing CEO Arora said: "The retail industry is facing inflationary pressures whilst our customers are having to cope with a significant increase in the cost of living, making spending behaviour in the year ahead difficult to predict. However, we have seen before that during such times customers will increasingly seek out value for money, and B&M is ideally placed to serve those needs."
Looking ahead, the company expects the growth prospects both in the UK and in France to be "highly attractive". It also expects to open at least 950 B&M UK stores, rising from its current total of 701, and targets continued expansion of its Heron Foods convenience store chain.
The company noted: "Notwithstanding the many and varied uncertainties and headwinds which are likely to impact on our trading performance during [the next financial year], at this early stage in the year group adjusted Ebitda is expected to be in the range of GBP550 million to GBP600 million, significantly ahead of the [financial 2020] pre-pandemic level of GBP342 million."
Adjusted Ebitda in financial 2022 came in at GBP619 million.
By Xindi Wei; [email protected]
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