Sales and profits up at Sports Direct
Clothing retailer Sports Direct revealed increases in both sales and gross profit through its latest interim management statement this morning. The Mansfield-based company said total sales were up 12.1 per cent for the 13 weeks to 23 January.
The group’s interim management statement, which concerned performance from 25 October 2010 to 16 February 2011, was revealed through the London Stock Exchange this morning.
Group total sales for the 13 weeks ending 23 January 2011 were up 12.1 per cent to £416m and gross profit increased 8.4 per cent to £167m over the period.
Retail sales in the 13 week period increased 13.8 per cent year on year to £371m and retail gross profit increased 9.6 per cent to £149m.
During this period, Sports Direct said itopened five core and three temporary stores. It also closed one core, two temporary and four non-core stores.
Dave Forsey, chief executive of Sports Direct International, said: "Since the end of January, the group's underlying performance has continued to be strong, especially within the UK retail division. Therefore we shall reach our full year targeted underlying EBITDA of £205m (before the charge for the bonus share scheme). During the remaining quarter and dependent on trading we will continually review further opportunities to invest in margin and or extra group marketing.
"At the interim results on 16 December 2010, we announced that for the half year ended 24 October 2010 we had a net debt to underlying EBITDA ratio of 1.2 times, and would be targeting a range between one and 1.5 times by April 2011. Due to our strong performance, we are now targeting a range of between 0.5 and one times underlying EBITDA by the year end."
