Value retailer B&M has suffered a fall in annual profits but its boss says it has “moved at pace” to address problems after a “difficult year”.
B&M reported a 37.7% slump in adjusted pre-tax profits to £284m on group revenue up 3.6% to £5.78m in the year to March 28.
At the core UK business, total sales were up 2.9% while like-for-likes inched down 0.1%. A “positive value and volume like-for-like performance” in general merchandise was offset by a “narrowing decline” in FMCG like-for-likes.
B&M chief executive Tjeerd Jegen, who took up the post a year ago, said it had been “a key transition year as we started to implement a comprehensive plan to restore our UK business to sustainable like-for-like sales growth following a prolonged period of underperformance, which had seen our grocery price proposition drift, our trading margins fall and on-shelf availability in key brands dip to unacceptable levels”.
He added: “The past six months has seen us sharpen our pricing, improve on shelf availability in bestselling brands and revamp our in-store promotions. We cleared discontinued lines well in Q4 and are now embarking on SKU count reductions across all our FMCG categories.”
He said the current year is one of investment as the retailer focuses on its ‘back to basics’ strategy.
Jegen maintained: “We are confident we can offset rising energy costs in the year ahead through cost mitigation, the benefits of which will flow through to our bottom line once we have returned B&M UK like-for-like sales to growth. In the medium term, we continue to see no reason why B&M UK cannot return to double-digit EBITDA margins.”
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