Footasylum warns on growth
Footasylum has reported a strong uplift in sales for the year to 24 February but has warned that profit growth will be weaker in the current financial year.
During the period, revenue was up 33% to £194.8 million with growth across all channels and product categories. Online sales rose by 41% and now account for 30% of total revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA increased by 12% to £12.5 million while adjusted pre-tax profit rose by 4% to £8.4 million.
Meanwhile, pre-tax profit fell to £1.9 million compared to £8.1 million in the previous year when exceptional items of £6 million and a share-based payment charge of £0.4 million were included.
Footasylum opened ten new stores, refitted two and upsized seven in the year.
Looking ahead, the company said that although its core target market of 16 to 24-year-olds had shown itself to be comparatively resilient in a downturn, trading since the beginning of the new financial year has been impacted weak consumer sentiment on the high street.
Claire Nesbit, Footasylum chief executive, added: “Despite this, we are confident that continued investment in digital and in our stores will allow the company to deliver strong revenue growth for the full year in line with market expectations.
“However, this will have an associated increase in both expected capital expenditure and property costs for the current year and as a result, we now anticipate that, adjusted EBITDA for FY19 is likely to show more modest growth than in FY18.”
Footasylum is looking to build a store estate of around 150 stores in the UK.
