Sports Direct International Plc, the U.K. sporting goods retailer, reported a decline in profit for its year ended April 24 despite a 10.2 percent growth in revenues and higher margins. Excluding exceptional items, underlying profit increased 33 percent from the prior year.
In announcing preliminary results, the company said its profit before tax declined to 118.79 million pounds from 119.5 million pounds in the previous year. Underlying pre-tax profit grew 32.7 percent to 135.5 million pounds from 102.1 million pounds last year.
On a per share basis, earnings were 13.93 pence, lower than 14.76 pence in the preceding year. Underlying basic earnings per share improved to 16.83 pence from 12.39 pence a year ago.
Revenues for the year grew 10.2 percent to 1.6 billion pounds from 1.45 billion pounds in the previous year. The company attributed the increase in revenues to a strong performance in the Retail division, where revenues rose 11.9 percent to 1.41 billion pounds. UK Retail sales were up 11.3 percent to 1.24 billion pounds. Brands division revenues decreased 1.5 percent to 187.7 million pounds.
The company noted that its UK like-for like gross contribution increased 6.6 percent over the 12-month period.
Group gross margin improved 60 basis points to 41.2 percent from 40.6 percent reported a year ago.
Commenting on the full-year results, Dave Forsey, Chief Executive of the company said, “This has been an excellent year of growth for the Group in what has been a challenging retail environment. Key to this growth has been the success of our employee bonus share scheme, which we introduced to focus the whole Group on our ambitious growth targets.”
Looking ahead, the company said, “The strength of our business model means that we are very well positioned for the challenges and targets for the future. Our progress since the year end is in line with management expectations and we are confident of reaching our current year target of underlying EBITDA of 215m pounds before scheme costs.”
