Irish arm of Holland & Barrett sees profits dip
PRE-TAX profits at the Irish arm of health food and wellness retailer Holland & Barrett last year declined marginally to €7m in spite of revenues increasing.
New accounts show that pre-tax profits decreased from €7.18m while revenues went up by 12pc to €49.69m in the 12 months to the end of September.
The business now has 63 stores after opening one new store last year, having opened nine stores in 2018.
The directors said that “both the level of business and financial position remain satisfactory”.
The company’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) last year totalled €7m – a decrease on the ebitda of €7.14m in 2018.
At the end of June 2019, the company had accumulated profits of €47.3m. Its cash pile decreased to €1.48m from €7.5m at the end of September.
The company’s non-cash depreciation costs totalled €1.25m while the increase in stores contributed to the company’s lease costs increasing to €6.5m from €5.8m.
The company recorded posttax profits of €6m after paying corporation tax of €1m.
The workforce at the business increased to 359 from 324, causing staff costs to rise to €9.88m from €8.5m.
Holland & Barrett is Europe’s leading retailer of vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements.
In August 2017 the group was purchased by LetterOne, controlled by Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman, for £1.74bn (€1.9bn).
Separate accounts for Holland & Barrett’s main UK retail arm show that it recorded a pre-tax loss of £18.3m in the 12 months to the end of September 2019. This followed revenues reducing marginally to £477.88m from £478.6m from its 792 stores in the UK, 484 worldwide store-in-store concepts and 73 worldwide franchise outlets.
The loss takes account of a £29.5m impairment charge.
Last year, the retail group opened a further 25 stores and 52 store-in-store concepts, but closed 24 franchise stores.
The group employed 5,626 staff – up from 5,339 – raising staff costs to €97m.
New stores caused lease costs to increase to €6.5m from €5.8m