Poundland owner Pepco has recorded an increase in annual sales and profits as it made “good progress” in its strategic plans.
The company said it would invest further to maintain its competitive advantage.
Total like-for-like sales grew 10.2 per cent in the fourth quarter and 9.8 per cent in the year to September 30.
READ MORE: Poundland to transform 10 Fultons stores in time for Christmas
In the fourth quarter, Poundland was ahead one per cent and 3.1 per cent in the year.
Full-year underlying EBITDA is expected to come in between €640 million and €655 million, which the retailer said would be at the upper end of analysts’ expectations, generating growth of 45 per cent growth versus “the mid-point on the Covid-impacted prior year”.
“We delivered another strong trading performance and made good progress against our strategic plans during the year,” Pepco chief executive Andy Bond said.
“Despite the operational challenges from Covid disruption, we continued to open new stores across all three of our brands, opening 141 in the final quarter.
“We are encouraged by the initial performance of the western European Pepco stores across Italy, Austria and Spain.
“We are also pleased by the results of our store renewal programme in driving our like-for-like performance and enhancing the customer experience.
“As consumer demand and business activity returned following Covid impacts, pressure on global supply chains has increased with reduced raw material availability leading to commodity inflation, further compounded by constrained container capacity, which significantly increased shipping costs from the final quarter.
“Through a combination of actions taken in our operating model and our unique Far East direct sourcing operation, PGS, which has strong direct supplier and factory relationships, we have quickly taken operational action to mitigate these impacts.
“In order to further drive our significant growth plans and recognising the financial strength of the group alongside the price-sensitive nature of our core customer, we intend to invest into our price proposition to maintain our price advantage.
“We have developed clear plans to reduce our operating cost base through leveraging our increased scale and capability to maintain the continued delivery of our profit growth.
“While the backdrop against which we operate will remain challenging for some time, we remain confident in the significant growth opportunity we have, our plans to achieve it and meeting future market expectations.”
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