B&M reveals rocketing sales and profits in full-years

Group sales were up 19.4% to £2.43bn in the 52 weeks to March 25, 2017.

UK like-for-like growth accelerated at 3.1%, up from 0.9% in 2016.

Pre-tax profit rose 18.4% to £182.9m and adjusted pre-tax profit rose 25.6% to £190.1m.

Over the period, B&M opened 53 new UK stores, which included nine relocations to its larger Homestores format, and 19 German stores.

It plans to repeat that growth this year, with 40-50 stores planned in the UK, 15 planned in Germany and has revised its UK store target from 850 to at least 950 stores nationwide.

B&M’s German business, Jawoll, delivered good growth, with sales of €212.6m (£184.1m), up from €181.5m.

Weak spot

One weak spot was its performance in clothing and footwear in its second half. B&M attributed this to an “unusually cold winter weather”.

It added that headline profitability was also affected by stock clearance of the German chain Knüller after its acquisition by Jawoll in the year before it was rebranded and refurbished as such, but B&M was “confident that the absence of these factors in the current financial year will see margins rebound”.

Chief executive and founder Simon Arora said that B&M had “never been in better shape”.

‘Structural shift in retailing’

He added: “The structural shift toward value in retailing, in which B&M has emerged as a UK leader, still has a long way to run, irrespective of the economic climate.

“Even with the very good progress we have made since our IPO, there remains a significant growth opportunity in both the UK and those European markets, which are still underpenetrated by general merchandise discount formats.

“Our market shares within individual product categories remain very small which provides scope for the business to maintain an attractive level of growth in the UK and as we extend our geographic reach in the years ahead.

“Our business is better equipped to grasp this opportunity than it has ever been before.”