Super sales growth
SRG profits from quick response to pandemic
AUSTRALIA’S love of the great outdoors has helped Super Retail Group buck the COVID-19 downturn and deliver sales growth across its most well-known brands.
Super Retail Group, which owns the Supercheap Auto, Macpac, BCF and Rebel brands, on Monday revealed that its annual sales increased 4.2 per cent to $2.83bn.
The growth was led by Supercheap Auto, which recorded a 7.6 per cent increase in sales to $1.11bn.
BCF sales grew 4 per cent to $535m, while Rebel jumped 3.3 per cent to $1.03bn.
Sales at outdoor adventure brand Macpac, however, fell 5 per cent to $131m.
The group’s online sales increased 44.4 per cent as COVID-19 lockdowns across the nation kept people at home in April.
Thousands of staff at the company will receive between $250 and $1000 as a “thank you” for working through COVID-19 and the summer bushfire season.
Super Retail managing director Anthony Heraghty said the group’s positive result
could partly be attributed to pent-up demand to travel outdoors in Queensland and Western Australia.
“We thought and hoped that we’d see some underlying trends through this COVID period we might be able to take advantage of,” he said.
“Queenslanders effectively went fishing and camping en masse over the winter period … which benefited BCF.
“We are well positioned to benefit from consumer trends emerging from the pandemic, including the channel shift to online, uptake in DIY auto repairs
and household projects, increased focus on personal health and wellbeing, and greater demand for domestic travel and outdoor leisure activities.”
Mr Heraghty said enforced lockdowns also boosted Supercheap Auto’s sales, as people stayed home to tinker with their car.
Despite the growth the group reported a 20.9 per cent fall in full-year net profit to $110.2m, partly due to backpay of wages to staff and support office restructure costs.
The result comes despite COVID-19 forcing the shutdown of group stores in Melbourne and New Zealand.
SRG shares rose 1.61 per cent to $10.68 and it declared a final dividend of 19.5c per share, down from 28.5c per share.
In the first seven weeks of the financial year the group’s sales increased 32 per cent.
Mr Heraghty said investment in its omni-retail strategy had allowed it to quickly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. He acknowledged the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic but said “the government has handled it quite well”.