Bhs sales up over Christmas
Flat like-for-likes since Spring agianst strong comparatives
January 16 2002
High street clothing retailer Bhs saw total retail sales increase by 3 per cent in the seven weeks to January 11.
Like-for-like sales were up 1.3 per cent, and margins up 0.4 per cent.
In the 41 weeks to January 11, like-for-like sales were flat. Bhs owner Philip Green said: “We are pleased with the performance of the business to date having consolidated the substantial increase of 200 per cent profit growth last year in difficult trading conditions.
“The Company’s strong cash flow together with tight stock management have resulted in the Group remaining debt free with net cash balances and terminal stocks lower than last year.
“This has all been achieved with further margin enhancements that we believe will enable us to deliver improved profitability on last year. We remain optimistic for the coming twelve months.”
Green said to news agency Reuters: “We could see the season was going to be difficult. We reined back stocks in October when sales turned soft. We have a lot of flexibility in our supply chain. We’ve achieved 9-1/2 percentage points of gross margin improvement over two years and that is probably better than anyone has ever done in this industry.”
