Premier Investments Limited (ASX: PMV) released its half-year financial report to investors today, showing a profit of nearly $79 million.
Premier Investments is a retail-focused business that operates a number of popular brands like JayJays, Just Jeans, Smiggle and PeterAlexander.
Here are some of the highlights from Premier Investment’s report, compared to last year:
- Revenue up 6.82% to $634 million
- Premier’s underlying retail day to day trading, or EBIT, increased by 10.2% to $102.5 million (What does EBIT mean?)
- Premier’s same-store sales increased by 2.4% (on a constant currency basis, some operations are overseas)
- Reported net profit increased by 9.4% to $78.6 million
- Dividend up 11.5% to 29 cents per share
“Premier Investments has again delivered a very strong result…This is the first time the business has achieved an underlying EBIT above $100 million for a half,” Mr Solomon Lew, Chairman of Premier Investments, said. “It was only two and a half years ago that we announced , for the first time, a full year underlying EBIT above $100 million.”
Premier’s internationally-growing brand, Smiggle, had global sales of $170.7 million, which was a 26.7% increase on last year’s amount. Smiggle opened 35 new stores globally and Premier said it continues to experience good same-store growth.
Peter Alexander also delivered double digit growth with sales going up by 15% to $114.4 million. It opened 12 new stores and also experienced ‘strong like-for-like growth’.
Premier’s retail businesses achieved online sales growth of 71.2% to $56 million. The company said that the original goal was $100 million of annual online sales by 2020, but it expects to achieve this in 2018, two years ahead of schedule.
Premier also reported that its balance sheet had $185.5 million of cash on hand. Its investment in Myer Holdings Limited (ASX: MYR) is valued at $54.8 million and its Breville Group Limited (ASX: BRG) investment is valued at $447.4 million.
Mr Lew also commented on the recent government change to apply GST on online international sales saying, “We are delighted that, from 1 July 2018, the Australian Government will implement the GST on all online international sales. This will benefit Premier and all Australian retailers (shareholders, employees and related industries) who now will be able to compete on a level playing field.”
Takeaway
In spite of the competition from online rivals, and the announcement that Amazon will expand in Australia, Premier Investment has again delivered profit growth for shareholders.
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