Hotter posts strong revenue growth as it embarks on partnership with M&S
Unbound Group, the parent company of Hotter Shoes, has said the footwear retailer increased its sales by 10% year-on-year in its fourth quarter and had a gross margin of above 61%.
This was achieved despite the impact of Covid-19 and supply chain challenges, although the latter improved and stabilised to a degree during the period.
This meant that Hotter’s revenues for the year to 30 January 2022 ended up being significantly ahead of last year with growth of 16% to around £51.9 million.
Unbound attributed the performance to the strength of Hotter’s products and multichannel offering, which resulted in double digit percentage revenue growth in both its digital and traditional retail channels. It said Hotter also benefited from a rapid uplift in the capture of email addresses, which grew by over 35% in the year. This took its emailable database to over one million from 767, 000 in the prior year.
On an IFRS basis, Hotter is expected to generate a full year adjusted EBITDA of approximately £5.5 million compared to a loss of £0.9 million in the previous 12-month period. In addition, pre-tax profit before exceptional items is not expected to be below £0.2 million, which will be an an improvement of the previous year’s loss of £6.6 million.
Unbound has also announced the launch of an initial 32 Hotter products on M&S.com today, although this eventually will increase to 75. The specially curated Hotter range for M&S will focus on comfort and active footwear and will include styles for men and women.
Ian Watson, Unbound chief executive, said: “I am delighted that the progress we have made in resetting Hotter continues to be translated into improved financial performance and momentum. The partnership with M&S is further testimony to Hotter’s attractiveness to other best in class retail platforms. The development of the Unbound Group platform is also gathering pace, we have strengthened the management team and we are currently engaged in positive discussions with a number of potential partners.”
