Blacks Leisure year-to-date comparable sales were down 1.8% with outdoor sales down 1.6% and Boardwear down 3.2%. Management said that for the year-to-date, the business is performing “satisfactorily.”
The relative improvement in the Boardwear performance partly reflects the conversion of seven Boardwear stores to the Outdoor format earlier in the year. The new format Outdoor stores, which the company says is an important element of the recovery strategy for the business, continued to perform well, reporting sales growth of 10.4% above the average.
The group is in an advanced state of negotiation concerning the renewal of its existing working capital facility with Lloyds Bank and the Board said it has confidence that this process will be completed rapidly to enable the group to focus on the continued delivery of the business turnaround plan.
In Outdoor, Millets now operates 256 stores and Blacks Outdoor has 116 stores, including 11 out-of-town stores. In Boardwear, Free-spirit now operates from 31 stores and O'Neill from 12 stores. In June, Blacks announced that it would be shifting all of its Boardwear locations over to Outdoor stores within the next year.
Claude Littner and Andrew Mallett have decided to step down as non-executive directors with immediate effect to enable them to spend more time on their other business commitments.
