Specialty Fashion Group, the owner of retailers including Katies, Millers and Crossroads, expects to end the half year on a higher note than it did last year.
The women’s fashion group expects EBITDA for the half year ended 31 December 2012 to be within the range of $37 million to $38 million, compared to the EBIDTA for the same period in the prior year of $21.9 million.
Consequently net profit for the year is expected to be in the range of $17 million and $18 million, a turnaround from the net profit of $6.3 million reported for the first half of the prior year.
This comes following revenue report for the half year being $311.2 million, 1.3 per cent higher than revenue for the previous corresponding period, reflecting underlying comparable store sales growth of 2 per cent in the half year.
Also, the group’s online sales grew to $11.3 million, making up 3.6 per cent of total revenue.
“Our continued focus on our strategies to improve sales, margins and costs of doing business has meant we have delivered a significant turnaround in trading performance, almost tripling our net profit for the first half of financial year 2013, when compared with the same period in financial year 2012,” Gary Perlstein, SFG CEO, said.
“The economic uncertainties and structural changes affecting retail have not gone away, but we have pulled all the levers within our control to achieve sustainable improvements and our results reflect this.”